
























A LITTLE JOURNEY 

TO 

FRANCE and SWITZERLAND 


FOR HOME AND SCHOOL, INTERMEDIATE 
AND UPPER GRADES 


EDITED 

BY 

MARIAN M. GEORGE 

« 


CHICAGO 

A. FLANAGAN COMPANY 





COPYRIGHT, 1902. 1923. BY A. FLANAOA N COMPANY 



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PRINTED IN' THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

tm-i® 

©CH704010 

"Vv o I 



A Little Journey to 
France. 


French people speak of their country as “la belle 
France” or “beautiful France”. It is not easy for one 
who has not visited France, and who has gained his 
knowledge of the country entirely from a geography, 
to understand its right to this title. 

The map shows us that it is flat, almost square in 
shape, and with no lakes and few mountains, except 
those upon its borders. It does not look like an inter¬ 
esting country and someone suggests that its beauty 
may not be due to its physical features. This we 
find is true of the greater part of France. Almost 
every charm of the country has been created by the 
hand of man. Its works of art, fine buildings, excel¬ 
lent roads, well tilled fields and fair meadows, are 
what make it lovely, and these are due to the affec¬ 
tionate labor of the people. 

What France is she owes to her climate. In the 
north it is cool and temperate; in the central part 
mild; in the south, the air is so balmy that it has be¬ 
come a world famed resort for invalids. But every 
part of the country is interesting and it is not an easy 
matter for the traveler who has but a month to devote 
to a country to decide where to go, and what to 
see. 

We have learned in school and through our shop¬ 
ping expeditions something of our dependence on 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


France for fabrics and articles that require elegance of 
taste and skillful workmanship. Among these are fine 
silks, cotton and woolen goods, jewelry, gloves, millin- 
* ery goods, laces, thread, fancy goods, porcelain ware, 
etc. There are other products and industries as well, 
for which the country is noted and which give employ¬ 
ment to great numbers of its people. The most im¬ 
portant of these is the manufacture of wines and beet 
sugar. 

If we wish to get an idea of the extent and import¬ 
ance of our trade with France, or of France with other 
countries, we should visit Havre, the seaport for 
Paris, at the mouth of the Seine River, Marseilles, 
the most important port of France,and Bordeaux, the 
second seaport, celebrated for its wines and claret. 

Among the other places of interest are Paris, the 
second largest city of Europe and the most beautiful 
city in the world; Lyons the leading silk manufactur¬ 
ing city of the world; Lille, noted for its manufactories, 
of thread,lace and beet root sugar; Valenciennes, fam¬ 
ous for its lace and linen; St. Quentin for its cambrics 
and lawns; Sevres for its china: Rouen because it is 
historically connected with Joan of Arc; Rheims and 
Amiens for their beautiful cathedrals. 

And few there are among us, I think,who would not 
wish to visit the home of America’s friend LaFayette, 
and of the world’s hero—Napoleon. 

SHORT HISTORY. 

During the early days of France, certain of the 
nobles gained possession of nearly all the land. They 
rented it out to the poor people who could not afford 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


7 


to own land of their own. These nobles soon became 
so rich and powerful that the king himself did not 
dare to tax them for fear of arousing their displeas¬ 
ure. So he made the renters or tillers of the soil pay 
the taxes of the nobles as well as their own. 

The wealthy land owners treated the laborers with 
contempt, and after a time the people of France came 
to be divided into two classes, the rich, and aristo¬ 
cratic people,forming what is known as the higher class, 
and the poor and laboring people, the lower class or 
peasantry. 

During the reign of Emperor Louis XIV, the people 
were taxed unjustly that he might have money to 
spend extravagantly. While we are in Paris we shall 
see some of the buildings on which he spent the peo¬ 
ple’s money, and it will be easy to understand how the 
country was driven into debt. 

When his grandson, Louis XVI, came to the throne 
the poor people resolved to endure their w T rongs no 
longer. They rebelled, put the king and many of the 
nobles in prison and finally killed them. This upris¬ 
ing of the common people against the members of 
royalty and the nobility was known as the French 
Revolution. 

One day a young man leaned his elbow on a marble 
banister of a building and watched the frenzied peo¬ 
ple rush in and out of the palace of the King. “What 
the wretches need is a little grape shot,” he re¬ 
marked to a by-stander, and as he-was Captain of 
Artillery in the army he ordered a cannon fired down 
the street. An hour later the avenue was cleared. 
This young man was Napoleon Bonaparte, who after¬ 
wards became the most famous general in the world. 


8 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE 



From a Painting 
by Ingres. 


JOAN OF ARC, THE IDOL OF FRANCE. 





A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


9 


From that moment his power grew, and nine years 
later he made himself emperor. When he had made 
peace at home he set about conquering the world. He 
subdued Italy, Spain, the German States, a part of 
Africa, and much of Europe. The other nations feared 



From a Painting NAt'OLKON I'KOSSlMi 1 111-ALPS, 
by David. 

him so much that they combined together and de¬ 
feated him in a great battle, the battle of Waterloo. 

Napoleon was exiled to an island called Saint Helena, 
where he remained until his death. His body was 
then brought back to France and now he lies in one of 
the most beautiful tombs that has ever been erected 
to any ruler. The French people, tho themselves half 





10 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


afraid of him, were very proud of him, and the city 
of Paris shows many public works erected in his honor 
or by his order. 

After the death of the Emperor, the people set up a 
monarchy with a descendent of Louis XVI at its 
head. This form of government was not satisfactory 
however, and after a few years the country was made 
a republic, much like our own. The same lines are 
drawn between the different classes in France today, 
but not so sharply. Many of the most famous and 
influential men of France have come from the ranks 
of the peasantry. 


PARIS. 

There is no question as to where we shall go first in 
France. All are agreed on Paris. Every one goes to 
Paris first and last, and comes back to it again and 
again, if time will but permit. Our first day in the 
city explains this. Such a beautiful, wonderful place! 
It surpasses our ideas of fairy land. 

It is almost dark when we arrive, and the station 
appears vast and gloomy. We are hurried along with 
the crowd into a great hall or room like a barn, where 
the luggage is examined. This is to prevent people 
smuggling goods into the country and defrauding the 
government of its customs duties. The system of 
baggage checking used in this country is similar to 
the one employed in the United States. 

We select a cab from the long line awaiting just 
outside the station, and are soon whirling through the 
streets of the capital and metropolis of France. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


11 


The city has a population of 2,900,000 inhabitants. 
It is celebrated for the beauty and magnificence of its 
public buildings and its clean streets. 

We are going to a hotel in the old part of Paris and 
to get there must drive through the central part of 
the city. Its broad avenues are streaming with light. 
Hundreds of lights blaze inside and outside the 
shops. Electric lights are blocked in columns against 
the buildings and high up on monuments. 

A great crowd throngs the street, but no one seems 
to be in a hurry. How different from London and 
Chicago! Even the Englishmen, of whom we see a 
great many, do not walk fast in Paris. We can tell 
these English when we see them because they are 
taller and heavier than the Frenchmen. The women 
are dark skinned, dark haired, bright eyed and wide¬ 
awake looking. The men look a trifle smaller than 
those in the United States and in Canada. A great 
many of them wear little point ed beards and mustaches 
carefully trimmed and waxed. They talk fast and 
make many gestures. 

A company of militia marches past us in the middle 
of the street. The men wear blue coats and red. 
trousers with black stripes. They are young recruits 
doing their first service. They look very fine but not 
as imposing as other military companies we have seen. 

Look at the cafes and the hundreds of people seated 
at the tables both inside and out. The cafes of Paris 
are, many of them, out-of-door restaurants. The 
people inside are playing billiards and dominoes, or 
reading. Those outside are eating, drinking, smoking 
and talking to their friends. The waiters bustle about 


12 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



with trays of drinks, and ices, and pots of steaming 
coffee. 

What a good time every one seems to be having! 
Let us stop for a cup of coffee. How odd it seems to 
see so many eating and drinking out-of-doors, on the 


BOULEVARD MONTMARTRE. 

very pavements, in this way. But it is very pleasant, 
and a fine place to watch the crowds that throng 
the street! 

There are fashionably dressed people bound for the 
opera; working men in blouses; servant girls with bare 
heads; priests in cassocks and broad-brimmed hats, 





A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


13 


and tourists, staring at everything with curious eyes 
and interested faces. One soon discovers from the 
faces and costumes that there are many people 
besides the French in Paris. The city attracts hosts 
of people from every civilized land on earth. They 
come first from curiosity, and stay because they love 
the place, and can find no other like it. 

Why is it that every one loves to come here? Some 
people say it is because it is pleasant to see so many 
cheerful, bright faces on every hand. The people of 
Paris appear to be happier than those of any other 
city. Their faces always wear smiles, no matter how 
hard their lot or numerous their troubles. They 
always seem to be having a holiday. 

OUR HOTEL. 

The traveler often finds more of interest, if not of 
comfort, in a hotel unlike those to which he is accus¬ 
tomed in his own country, and to such a hotel we are 
going now. In reaching it we pass by numbers of 
fine, modern looking hotels, containing all the luxuries 
and conveniences of our finest hotels at home. 

Finally the carriage drives into a courtyard, made 
attractive with trees and vines and a fountain. The 
cabman opens the carriage door. We have arrived at 
our- destination. A porter rushes out and takes charge 
of our luggage. Another conducts us to an office, 
where the landlady in charge greets us with smiles 
and bows. She chatters away at such a rate we can 
scarcely understand a word, so we ask her to speak 
very slowly until we become accustomed to the lan¬ 
guage. How glad we are to be able to speak and 
understand even a little French. 


14 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


We are assigned rooms on the fourth floor. There 
is no elevator; so we must walk up. This is not so 
pleasant. Are there not rooms upon the first or sec¬ 
ond floor? The landlady shrugs her shoulders and 
shakes her head. It would never do to sleep upon 
the first floor. It is damp and not healthful. Only 
the servants sleep there. And the rooms on the sec¬ 
ond floor are already taken. So we try to be content. 

The rooms in the hotel are large and clean, and the 
furniture very old fashioned. There is a fire place 
under the mantel, but it looks as if no fire had ever 
been built in it. Fuel they say is so expensive in 
Paris that only the wealthy have fires when the 
weather is chilly. 

The French people seem to be fond of draperies. 
Three sets of curtains hang from the windows, and 
the mantel and bed are also draped. There are no 
rocking chairs in the room. Rocking chairs are not 
popular in France. Perhaps this is because almost 
every one goes out of doors to spend leisure hours. 

The room is rather dingy looking, but the beds are 
so comfortable that we go to sleep almost as soon as 
our heads touch the pillows. When morning comes a 
special order brings to our rooms a breakfast of hard 
rolls, butter, honey and coffee. It seems a rather 
scant meal to us, but is all that the French people eat, 
and while in France we wish to do as the French 
people do. 

When we go down stairs to buy a postage stamp, 
a man rushes to put it on the envelope for us. 
Another asks to help us get into our light wraps. 
We are supposed to pay for all of these services, 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


15 


not very much, however; not more than ten or twenty 
cents a day. 

Where shall we go first in Paris? The hotel clerk 
kindly tells us that the best bird’s eye view of the 
city is to be had from the top of St. Jacques, which is 
very nearly in the center of the city. After breakfast 
we hurry to the spot, taking a hotel boy as guide, and 
climb its three hundred and ten steps. 

PANORAMA OF PARIS. 

Viewed from our high position, Paris is a wonderful 
and beautiful picture. It lies in a plain, shut in on 
three sides by hills. The Seine river wriggles through 
the center of the city, dividing it into two almost 
equal sections. A large island lies in the river near 
the heart of the city. Massive buildings are on it. 

The river is crossed by many handsome bridges and 
the river banks protected by thick stonewalls. There 
are no unsightly elevated railways to obstruct the 
view, no telephone or telegraph poles to disfigure the 
streets. 

Below we can plainly see the boulevards running 
through the heart of the city. On the east side of the 
river, three different circles of wide streets are marked 
out, one within another. From this height we can 
see how white they are. These, our guide tells us, 
are the boulevards. In olden times Paris had walls 
around it. Every once in a while this wall had to be 
torn down and moved out farther because the city 
grew. Finally it was abolished altogether, and all the 
ground that it had ever occupied was made into these 
lovely streets. They are spoken of as the “boulevard 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



PANORAMA OF PARIS 





























A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


17 


system” of Paris. Every once in a while they are 
crossed by other wide, white streets also called boule¬ 
vards, but these really have not the right to the name. 
The part of the city east of the river is the fashion¬ 
able section. That on the left is largely given up to 
small trades people and students. 

What a contrast to London! The buildings are of 
gray limestone and look spotlessly clean. The air is 
free from dust and smoke. The reason for this is that 
charcoal and wood are used instead of coal. 

Now let us descend and take a stroll through the 
city and later in the day view it from the top of an 
omnibus. 

THE STREETS AND SHOPS. 

By starting out very early in the morning one has 
an opportunity to see how the people of Paris man¬ 
age to keep their streets so clean. At this time they 
are carefully washed by a slender spray of water. 
Every bit of paper, fruit skin, cigar stubs and refuse 
of all kinds are picked up and carried away. The 
work of doing this supplies many a ragged man and 
boy with pennies. Certain persons pick up certain 
things and no others. For instance the “cigar-stub 
boy” would not touch a banana peel. His occupation 
begins before the day is over, and all evening he 
glides in and out among the cabs and carriages, 
catching up with his long, hooked stick the little 
pieces of tobacco. He has to be very bold and very 
bright-eyed to carry on his profession. His earnings 
after all his hours of work are only a few pennies. 
Some day he may be one of the rich men of the world, 


18 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


however. Such are the wonderful changes that take 
place in Paris. 

People come from all over the world to shop in 
Paris, for this city leads all others in fashions. Ladies 
visiting Paris for the first time find the shops so fas¬ 
cinating that they spend almost as much time in vis¬ 
iting them as in the art galleries and viewing the 
public buildings. 

In the first shop window we come to, hundreds of 
diamonds sparkle. They are skilfully arranged so as 
to show them off to the best advantage,—the large 
brilliant ones being in little clusters by themselves. If 
we went into the shop, we should probably find that 
most of them were imitations. But they are good 
imitations. Next door, a candy shop window invites 
us with its beautiful pale green draperies and cunning 
little egg-shaped boxes full of delicious looking candy. 
If we tasted it, we should probably find it to be as 
good as it looked. In still another window, we see all 
manner of dolls,—babies, young ladies, brides, sailors, 
—with whole wardrobes of dresses. Dresses for little 
boys and girls are also in this window. Some of them are 
made like sailors’ uniforms, some like soldiers’ and some 
like the clothes that the Russians wear. During our 
walk, we come to little boys wearing clothes like these 
in the windows, and they look very nice in them. 

There are many curious stores, big and little,in Paris. 
The “chocolate woman” keeps a little stand under a 
tree where she sells coffee, chocolate, tea and sand¬ 
wiches for a sum so small that it seems funny to us. 

Another store roasts chickens and game in big ovens 
before the very eyes of the customers. When the 


A LITTLE JOCJRNEY TO FRANCE. 


19 


cooking is finished, they will sell us a wing or a breast , 
or if we want it, a whole chicken. They will even 
sell us a piece before it is cooked and let us cook it our¬ 
selves at home. 

In the big department stores in Paris,every thing in 
the world is kept. The clerks, themselves, usually own 
stock in the store,and if they do not,they get commis¬ 
sions for what they sell, in addition to their salaries. 
This makes them very attentive. But if we like we can 
order our things by mail, without ever going near the 
store, and they will be delivered. Some of these 
places have curious names, such as the “Carnival of 
Venice,” the “Springtime,” the “Scabiense,” (the 
name of a kind of flower that the French strew over 
their graves). The biggest of all these stores and the 
first one of them to be organized is the Bon Marche. 
This place is always crowded, and on “bargain days” 
it is jammed. 

TRANSPORTATION IN PARIS. 

There are street cars and elevated railways, but 
the most popular way of getting about a city is to 
take a cab or omnibus. The omnibus is a two storied 
affair, the lower story looking much like our “busses” 
at home. It has seats running along its sides. The 
upper story, or roof, has two seats running down the 
center, back to back. One climbs up to them by a 
stairway on the back of the coach. 

Each passenger is entitled to a seat,which he secures 
by applying for a number at the office in the square 
where he secures or enters the bus. When the seats 
are filled no more passengers are taken; so there is no 
over-crowding. 


20 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



For six sous, we can ride from one end of the city to 
the other. It costs just as much, however, to ride one 

block. The con¬ 


ductor, like every¬ 
body else in Paris, 
is exceedingly 
polite. He helps 
people to get up 
and down the stair 
way, not an easy 
task for stout per¬ 
sons to accomplish, 
—and he answers 
all manner of ques¬ 
tions without los¬ 
ing his temper. 

The driver of the 
cab is also polite, 
but sometimes we 
find that his good 
manners are not 
over “skin deep.” He is not apt to be the owner of 
his cab and an independent man of business. He is more 
likely to be in the employ of one of two or three com¬ 
panies which among them own nearly all the public car¬ 
riages of France. This is one reason when we signal 
him on the street he may lash his horse with the 
polite explanation that he is busy, or we may find his 
cab idle at the common stand while he is at the 
rendezvous of drivers around the corner. He sends 
word that he would consider it a favor if we would 
take his partner’s cab instead. 


AN UNWILLING SUBJECT 
Photographed by Mrs. R. F. Fitz. 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


21 


The very low fare charged tends to make cabs 
popular in Paris. If the cook gets caught in the rain 
at market, she sends for a cab to take her home. 
Often workmen, in threes and fours, drive out in them 
early in the mornings to their place of business. 

One must keep a sharp look-out while crossing the 
streets of Paris, to avoid being run over by one of the 
many automobiles that go whizzing by constantly. 
These machines seem to be much more popular in 
Paris than in the cities of the United States. 

The cab driver gives a peculiar warning cry like 
+‘Hu-e”! to one who gets in his way. It would never 
occur to him to turn out of his way for a pedestrian. 

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 

Let us start from the Place de la Concorde, the most 
magnificent public square in the world. Its name in 
English would be “place of peace,” and today its 
name seems to suit it. No spot could be more serene. 
Fountains splash within it, with an idle noise. 

From one side of the square rises an Egyptian obe¬ 
lisk from Thebes. This was a present to Louis 
Philippe by the ruler of Egypt in 1830. To transport 
it and put it up was such a task, however, that six 
years passed before the obelisk took its place in Con¬ 
cord Square. It weighs five million pounds and as it 
cost two million francs to erect it, the French people 
say that the stone it is made of cost four francs a 
pound. 

Eight statues of women stand in the square. The 
guide tells us that they represent the eight principal 
French cities. One of them is draped in black to indi- 


22 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


cate the sorrow of the French people over the loss of 
Strasbourg in the Franko-Prussian war. 

The Place de la Concorde has not always been so 
quiet as it is today. During the French Revolution 
this is the spot where the guillotine stood which cut off 
people’s heads and caused the rivers of blood to flow. 



PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 

The King and Queen of France and many others gave 
up their lives here. 

Looking in one direction from this square we see the 
Seine; on the left side lies the Garden of the Tui- 
leries, in the rear a street opens into a thoroughfare 
which leads to the Majestic Church of the Madeleine and 
on the right is the promenade of the Champs Elysees, 












A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 23 

where so many gc to drive or walk at four o’clock in 
the afternoon. 

This is the most wonderful street in Paris. It is 
about two hundred feet wide and is divided by rows 
of fine trees, horse-chestnuts, and elms into several 
avenues. The widest of these are covered with 
asphalt and thronged with carriages. The narrower, 
which are covered with sidewalks, though they are 
wider than most of our streets at home, overflow with 
people who are taking a walk. Great statues, monu¬ 
ments and fountains standout at places in the middle 
of the street with the walks and driveways running 
around them. 

In huge showy carriages, drawn by horses stiff with 
heavy, jingling harness, beautiful ladies are seated. 
Handsome officers in gay uniforms ride past on horse¬ 
back. Richly dressed children dance along beside 
their nurses, who wear white aprons and caps with 
starched lawn bows. Everybody is out to take the 
air, and everybody looks happy, even the little boot- 
black who slips along the gutters. Maybe he has had 
no breakfast and does not know where he will have, 
dinner. But his face wears a smile. 

What numbers of merry-go-rounds there are along 
the streets, and what fine ones! In some of them you 
ride on pigs, in others on lions and tigers. Then again 
you sit in little boats which plunge up and down 
until it makes you seasick to watch them. It seems 
as though there are Punch and Judy shows on every 
corner, and swarms of children watching the queer 
antics of the clowns. It is Thursday, the day on which 
some of the stores ^lose early. We notice that the 


24 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

young men clerks, who are passing by us on their 
way home, look as neat and trim as though they were 
starting out in the morning. One of them daintily 
flicks a spot of soot from his cuff and another is draw¬ 
ing on a very new looking glove. Every one wears 
gloves, old and young, little and big. The French 
ladies, who are returning from their shopping, are the 
most elegant looking women we have ever seen. They 
are considered the best dressed people in the world, 
yet they do not spend as much on their clothes as 
many English and Americans. 

Tired people leave their homes in the evening and 
come here for a stroll, or for amusement. There are 
open air concerts on this avenue, where they may sit 
and listen to the music and perhaps see a play. They 
eat ices or sip coffee, and sometimes play games or 
gamble for ginger bread. There are booths, too, that 
remind one of a fair or market place. 

There are children's theatres, and the circus, and all 
kinds of amusing performances. 

THE ARCH OF TRIUMPH. 

At the end of the avenue is the finest arch in the 
world—the Arch of Triumph. It was built by Napo¬ 
leon in memory of his victories and cost a mint of 
money. It is a broad, massive structure, forming 
an arch like a gateway. Inside is a little staircase. 
From the top of the edifice one can get a fine view of 
Paris. Its name in English would be “Star Arch," 
because it stands in the center of twelve avenues, 
which go out from it like the points of a star. The 
first Napoleon meant to put up four of these arches, 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


25 



It is made of stone and cased with bronze from cap¬ 
tured cannons. Upon the summit of the column 142 
feet high, stands a statue of Napoleon. 

Now let us pay a short visit to one of the most 


but only two have been completed—this and the Arc 
Du Carrousel. 

Another reminder of Napoleon is the Vendome col¬ 
umn, erected by his orders in the very heart of the 
city. It also was built in memory of his victories. 


arch of triumph. 

























26 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


interesting of all the public buildings of Paris, the 
Soldiers’ Home, that contains the tomb of Napoleon. 

THE HOTEL DES INVALIDS. 

This beautiful building is a home for the aged and 
wounded soldiers of France. The government is very 
kind to its soldiers you see, and takes good care of 
them. The building is broad and adorned with Doric 
columns. A huge round gilded tower containing 
many windows r'ses from its roof and is topped by a 
tapering spire and cross. No matter where we are in 
Paris this dome is visible. 

Beneath the dome is the tomb of Napoleon,- one of 
the most magnificent sepulchers on earth. In a 
marble lined room, we look down on a crypt twenty 
feet deep and thirty-six feet in diameter. Around 
this crypt are twelve statues of victory and groups of 
battle flags captured in Napoleon’s wars. Above the 
entrance to the crypt are the emperor’s last words in 
his will: “I desire that my ashes may repose on the 
banks of the Seine among the French people L love so 
dearly.” 

THE RUE DE RIVOLI. 

Here we are at the Rue de Rivoli, one of the best- 
known and most attractive streets of Paris. The 
peculiar thing about this street is the long line of 
arcades extending for a long distance on its northern 
side. These are formed by a projection of the second 
story of each building over the side walk, thus furnish¬ 
ing a walk completely sheltered from the sun or rain. 
What a fine place to walk and shop on a rainy day! 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE 


27 



RUE DE RTVOLI. PARIS. 












28 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


This is a favorite place for tourists and travellers 
to gather, for the shops are filled with attractive mer¬ 
chandise such as jewelry, photographs, pictures, and 
many articles which make desirable souvenirs for for¬ 
eigners to buy and take home. 

On one side for a long distance this street is bord¬ 
ered by the Garden of the Tuileries and the museum 
of the Louvre. 

THE LOUVRE. 

The Louvre is a noble Treasure House of Art and 
one of the most important museums in the world. No 
one who visits Paris fails to see it. It is famous for 
its paintings, statues, antiquities, pottery and bronzes, 
collections of French gems and jewels, furniture and 
tapestry. 

The building containing these treasures is a very old 
and magnificent one. It was used as a royal residence, 
down to the time of Louis XIV, who removed the 
Court to the Palace of Versailles. The two Napoleons 
added wings to the building, united it to the palace of 
the Tuileries and made it much more attractive to 
the eye. The building is of white stone, with rows 
of columns across the front, and together with the 
Palace occupies twenty-four acres. In the Louvre are 
exhibited only the paintings of artists who have been 
dead ten years or more. 

Entering the Louvre we find the building divided 
into small rooms connected by large openings as if 
made for folding doors. It is very bewildering to 
see so many pictures at once. 

The most celebrated statue in this gallery is the 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


29 



Venus de Milo. It stands alone in one section of the 
building. Other works of art are kept away from it 
so that attention may not be distracted from the ex¬ 
quisite beauty of the lines of the figure. 

In another room a rather small picture han :s against 
a background of dull grey velvet. No other picture 


is within fifteen feet of this one. It is an especially 
fine painting and it is put by itself so that it will show 
off to advantage. 

One can find here the pictures of the greatest 
artists the world has ever known. There are pictures 
by Raphael, and Rubens and Murillo, Millet, Rubens, 
Vandyck and many others. 


GALLERY OF THE LOUVRE 









30 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO J? KA1n*jjiu 


Among the pictures we recognize “The Gleaners/’ 
Millet’s masterpiece, that is so well known the world 
over. All his subjects are taken from the life of the 
peasants among whom he lived. 

He himself was a peasant, and naturally felt the 
sorrows of these poor people keenly. He pictured 
their hardships as no one from a different circle of 
society could do. He took such dreary subjects for 
his pictures and used such sombre colors, that for 
years and years nobody paid any attention to his 
work. His life was hard and when we look at his 
pictures, we find that most of them make us sad. Be¬ 
fore we leave France we will visit his old home a t Bar- 
bizon, a suburban village of Paris. 

Next to the Louvre and adjoining the Rue de Rivoli 
is the garden of the Tuileries. Surely no more delight¬ 
ful spot can be found in all France, for children. 
There are splashing fountains where graceful swans 
glide about, stopping now and then to eat from the 
hands of the little ones. There are statues and beds 
of beautiful flowers to admire, green sod on which to 
tumble about and play, sand in which to dig, trees 
under which to sit and rest. 

The place is swarming with children and their 
nurses, and very pretty pictures they make. The 
nurses are red-cheeked, round-faced, black-eyed 
women, wearing very picturesque costumes. They 
wear ruffled white caps upon their glossy black hair, 
and white aprons. Their caps are trimmed with yards 
of bright colored ribbon and streamers that reach al¬ 
most to the bottoms of their skirts. They wear long 
cloaks often of the same color as the ribbon that*trims 
the cap, and they look very gay indeed 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. “31 

The babies in their care are dressed in white. The 
children of the wealthy people are always accom¬ 
panied by their nurses or parents, and have not the 
same freedom as the children of the poorer classes. 
They are sometimes richly and daintily dressed, and 



From a Painting by J. F. Millet. 


THE GLEANERS. 

are not so free in their movements for fear of spoiling 
their fine clothes. 

But most of the children dre5S very simply. They 
wear no stiff collars, or ruffled and tucked dresses, 
which prevent their playing and enjoying themselves 




32 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


as they like. The gowns are short and plain, the 
stockings thick, and shoes heavy. The boys wear a 
dark blue or black cotton or woolen blouse belted at 
the waist, and with immense pockets that hold great 
numbers of articles. 

A WALK IN PARIS. 

Leaving the Rue de Rivoli we walk on to the great 
market place of Paris. This consists of twelve im¬ 
mense sheds of iron and glass in a great open square. 
Little booths are partitioned off in places and women 
in white caps and aprons stand behind them. 

The booths of the market place are piled with fruit, 
melons, and vegetables; rows upon rows of poultry 
and game, stacks of fish and butter, cheese and dairy 
products are in others. How clean and neat every¬ 
thing is, and how beautifully arranged! 

The French peasants for miles around bring their 
products to this place. Most of the things are sold to 
the dealers in the city in wholesale lots. But there is 
some retailing, and if we got close enough we should 
hear,a great deal of quarreling between the tradesmen 
and the servants of rich people who are buying. The 
first begins by asking much more for his goods than 
they are worth. The latter offer for them much less 
than they are worth. And only after a great deal of 
argument do they settle on a price. All of the 
goods brought into market this way are taxed. 

In a few moments we come to another market place 
half under cover, half open. Here only flowers are 
sold. We see the mass of color while we are faraway. 
Wagons also make for this place, and they are filled 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


33 


with the most exquisite flowers. Some of them are 
big Jacques roses, such as sell at home for a dollar 
apiece. In Paris a pretty bare-headed flower girl 
will offer them to you for a few sous. 



One of the marvels of Paris to us, is the Eiffel Tower, 
in the centre of the city. It is the highest monument 

ever erected, 
reaching a height 
985 feet above the 
Seine. It was built 
in 1889 for the 
Paris Exposition 
and utilized as a 
point where fine 
views of the city 
might be obtained. 
Elevators were 
used to transport 
travelers to the 
platforms so many 
feet above the 
earth. 

Paris has the 
largest and finest- 
library in the 
world. It is said that the book cases placed in a line 
would make forty miles of bound books. It contains 
over 1,300,000 books and 100,000 valuable manuscripts. 

The Hotel de Ville, or town hall, is situated on the 
right bank of the river. It is a most magnificent build¬ 
ing, and splendidly decorated with statues, or elabor¬ 
ate carving. The Town Hall that occupied the site 


LUNCH HOUR. 
Photographed by Mrs R. F. Fitz. 



34 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

of the present building was destroyed by the commun¬ 
ists in 1871. The building was set on fire and 
burned, hundreds of persons on the inside perishing in 
the flames. It seems singular that the citizens of Paris 



HOTEL DE YILLE. 


should ever so far lose their reason as to destroy a 
building of such interest, and permit their companions 
to die in the flames, but this deed was done by an¬ 
archists excited to a frenzy of madness. 

Near the heart of the city, we come to a ceme¬ 
tery. It is called the Pere la Chaise and is literally 
full of the tombs of famous people. We leave our 
cab to go inside for a little while. There are many 
strange tombs here built of stone that look on the out¬ 
side like little houses. These are chapels or shrines. 
The coffins are placed in vaults beneath these chapeis. 
Sometimes a table and furniture will be in the room, 














A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


35 


and pictures of the dead in frames will ornament the 
place. 

Some of the graves are covered with wreaths of dif¬ 
ferent colored beads, made to represent flowers. They 
are extremely ugly. 

Nothing can be more interesting than a walk 
through the streets of Paris. It is quite as absorbing 
to the traveler as a play. The French never appear 
to be hurried or worried or dull or tired. They take 
time to chat when they meet in public places and talk 
so fast and gesticulate so violently with the hands, 
that one who did not understand their language might 
imagine they were quarreling much of the time. 

Look out in the street at that officer! He is 
having a dispute with a cabman. They both get 
excited, shrug their shoulders, bob their heads up and 
down, work their hands and indeed their whole bodies. 
This official thinks he is a very important person. 
He wears a cocked hat and sword, and a blue coat. 
He is stout and his military uniform so tight that it 
gives him somewhat the appearance of a stuffed pin 
cushion. 

Just ahead of us, are two girls who are arrayed in 
their confirmation gowns. These are white, from the 
long white veil that falls from the head to the white 
shoes. 

There goes a carriage with another white robed 
little maid. How proud and happy she looks. By 
her side are the father and mother and older sister. 
It is a day long to be remembered by the little girl 
and her family. The balance of the day will be spent 
in receiving and visiting friends. 


36 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


A moment later a funeral procession winds slowly 
by. The hearse is hung with purple pansy wreaths 
almost as large as cart wheels. 

There are no women among the mourners and rela¬ 
tives who accompany the body to the grave. The 
men on the streets all take off their hats and some 
stop and bow their heads in silent prayer for a minute. 

By this time we have walked a little beyond the 
business portion of the street. A black-robed priest 
passes by us. He is slender and tall wilh black hair 
and eyes and a pale face. His hands are small, 
veined and delicate. He wears a long, black coat 
buttoned to his chin. At the corner, he passes into a 
church, and we decide to go in, too. In Paris the 
churches are open all day, even when there are no 
services. This one seems bare, dark and empty. 
Our footsteps echo through the room. We soon see, 
however, that there are twelve or fourteen people 
scattered over the room. They are all kneeling in 
their different places, in silent prayer. 

When we come out, children are running by on 
their way from school. The little boys all have on 
black aprons. From time to time, we see other boys 
on the street, dressed in white with white aprons. 
They are little baker boys. 

We have turned several corners and are now in a 
less fashionable part of town than we were at first. 

Big apartment houses tower on either side the nar¬ 
row streets. There are no yards. The material of 
these houses is very much like that of the finer ones, 
however. They are nearly all of a yellowish stone. 
The streets are just as clean as the fine ones, and have 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


37 


almost as many parks and fountains, except that 
these are smaller. 

A group of workingmen come swinging along past us. 
They wear blue blouses and overalls, and some of 
them have on coats of cotton velvet. They are chat¬ 
ting noisily and seem to be having a gay time. But 
the sight of them reminds us that it is getting late 
and we turn homeward. 

Our walk now takes us along the Seine. On its 
banks many idle-looking men sit fishing. Sometimes 
their wives and daughters are beside them. They do 
not seem to be catching many fish. One old man does 
haul out his line just as we pass him. On the end of 
it is a little fish about three inches long. Immediately 
all of the other people stop what they are doing and 
crowd around him, laughing and talking. The man 
himself puts up his line and starts for home. No doubt 
he will have his wife cook his little-fish for supper. 
There are many poor people in Paris to whom a little 
fish like this one would be very welcome. 

IMPORTANT BUILDINGS. 

One of the most beautiful, interesting and famous 
buildings in the city is the Cathedral of Notre Dame. 
We have seen its towers many times from distant 
parts of the city and are glad to have a closer view at 
last. What a wonderful piece of handiwork! Almost 
every stone in the building is skillfully carved with 
designs, and figures, by some artist who has found his 
task a labor of love. What years of patient toil this 
vast building represents! 

We go inside and find that the usual morning ser- 


38 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


vice is being held. There are hundreds of people 
present, but they seem almost lost in the vast nave of 
this place. A thousand colors mingle in the soft 
light from the stained glass windows, and fill us with 
a sense of rest and peace. When we enter, the people 
are kneeling, and we hear the sound of chanting. 



NOTRE DAME CHURCH. 


Presently a white robed procession of choir boys 
marches through the vestry door. They parade the. 
aisles of the church, chanting all the while. But the 
sound loses itself before it reaches the farthest corner 
of the building. Let us now visit another magnificent 
building on the banks of the Seine that is known as 
the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies. 







A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 39 

France is now a republic. The people elect their 
own rulers and govern themselves. They have a 
President and Senate and House of Representatives. 
The latter is known as the Chamber of Deputies. 
If we wish to see something of the chief branch of 
the Congress of France we must secure cards of ad¬ 
mission from the American Minister. These will 
admit us to the gallery of the Legislative Hall. 

From seats in the gallery we look down upon the 
members of Congress as they speak. But we do not 
understand French and cannot even guess what is 
being said. If we wish to see the Senate we must go 
to the Palace of the Luxembourg. The President we 
will find in his official palace on the Champs Elysees. 

On the left bank of the Seine in the part of the city 
known as Old Paris is another art gallery called the 
Luxembourg. In it are exhibited the works of living 
artists, whose pictures are kept here for ten years 
after their deaths. Then the finest of these paintings 
are selected and transferred to the Louvre for per¬ 
manent exhibition. 

Under the French monarchy the Luxembourg was 
a royal palace, built by Marie de Medici, the queen 
of- Henry IV., founder of the Bourbon line of kings. 
In later years it was enlarged by Louis Philippe. 
After his downfall it became the Seat of the Senate. 

The Luxembourg and the Tuileries Gardens are the 
favorite play grounds of the children of Paris. 

The boys sail boats on the little artificial lakes. 
Some bring their own private vessels with them, others 
rent from the public, toy-boat houses on the grounds. 


40 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



The smaller children drive in a cari hitched with a 
goat in bright red harness, while their nurse walks be¬ 
side them. They have rented the turnout for four 


THE LUXEMBOURG GALLERY. 

sous for fifteen minutes. Others are playing tennis. 
There are not enough nets and courts,but that does not 
seem to interfere with the children’s pleasure in batting 
the balls back and forth. Another favorite game is 












A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


41 


spinning the top. They keep it going by beating it 
with a small whip. A little toddler who can hardly 
walk, whips away at a top which his nurse spins for his 
amusement. He hardly ever hits it, to be sure, but 
he doesn’t seem to mind that. Balls of every color 
and size bound through the air at play time. Foot¬ 
ball is a favorite game with the boys. But they do 
not play it as we do. By their rules you may never 
touch the ball with your hands and must move it only 
by kicking it. 

We are now in the western part of the city. Let 
us walk about and take a look at Old Paris. The 
streets are most of them crooked, and some quite 
narrow, the buildings quaint and not very pretentious, 
and the stores smaller. We find this part of the town 
is noted chiefly for its Latin Quarter (a community 
where students live), its curious second-hand book¬ 
stalls and the University of France, called the Sor- 
bonne. 

THE STUDENTS’ QUARTER. 

The Latin Quarter is but a short distance from the 
Luxembourg. The residences here, as everywhere in 
Paris,are flat buildings, and look commonplace enough 
from the outside. If we went inside, however, we 
should find the rooms many of them decorated pictur¬ 
esquely, for they are mostly occupied by art students. 
The other occupants are chiefly medical students. 

The houses are usually rented from garret to cellar 
by one person, (very often a woman). She then lets 
them out in apartments to the students. As students 
are nearly always poor, the landlady does not put 
much money into the furniture for her building. 


42 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



Nine times out of ten in these apartments, you 
will see a little Venus of Milo standing on a table or 

bracket in the sitting 
room, for every art 
student loves her. 
Sometimes the art 
students do not like 
the wall paper that 
the landlady selects 
for them. So they 
buy yards of heavy, 
unbleached canvas, 
tack it across the 
walls, and paint de¬ 
signs on it. These 
are usually big scroll 
papers. But occa¬ 
sionally the men 
want it to be funny, 
and they paint cari¬ 
catures of one an¬ 
other and other 
amusing scenes on 
these. When the 
students are having 
parties they often 
get to telling stories, 
and one of them, to 
make clear what he 
venus de milo is describing, will 

draw a sketch of it on the wall. The work of many an 
artist now famous stands on walls in the Latin Quarter. 




A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


43 


These people study very hard. Some of them “club 
together” and hire models to come to one of the stu¬ 
dios, where they all draw him. Others hurry away 
early in the morning to the Luxembourg and the 
Louvre to copy the great masterpieces. The medical 
students are busy attending lectures from morning 
until night. 

But if they are hard working, they are also gay. 
After the day’s duties are over, they put their few 
pennies together in a common pile; some one goes out, 
buys long loaves of bread, cheese, lettuce, sausage, 
wine, and other articles of food. Then they all go to 
a student’s room and have a “spread.” While they 
eat their suppers, they tell funny stories, sing, offer 
toasts, and make a great deal of noise. At other times 
they all go together for supper to some queer little 
favorite restaurant, where good salads are to be had 
cheap. On their way home, they sometimes march 
and sing. They have musical instruments,which they 
are very fond of playing through the streets. We 
should think that the inhabitants would complain of a 
disturbance of the public peace. But almost every¬ 
body in the Latin Quarter is having some festivity, 
and making a noise himself, and everyone is good 
natured. The police never interfere. 

CAFES. 

One thing that has struck us as peculiar about Paris 
is her Cafes. In the first place there are so many of 
them. In some districts there are ten or twelve to a 
block. They are usually on the ground floor and 
often the covered walks in front of the cafes are 


44 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


crowded with small tables and chairs. They are full 
of people not only at meal times, but at all hours of 
the day and evening. Some one tells us that they 
are just about as crowded in rainy and in cold weather 
as now. 

PARIS HOMES AND PEOPLE. 

As we have noticed so often before, nearly everyone 
in Paris lives in flats. Usually the buildings are large 

and often hold as 
many as a hun¬ 
dred families. 
Once in a while, 
however, we see a 
house with only 
twelve apartments 
in it. They nearly 
always come out 
to the edge of the 
street,but are built 
around a central 
court or yard. In 
the better houses, 
this little spot is 
pretty and green. 
Sometimes it is 
ornamented with 
a village street. a fountain. and 

Photographed by Mrs. R. F. Fitz. small pieces of 

statuary. On the 
ground floor, there are never any living rooms, except 
those of the keeper of the flat. His apartment is 











A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 45 

built just off of the courtyard. The fine houses con¬ 
tain elevators in which to carry people up stairs, but 
one is always expected to walk down. Indeed the 
most of the French people walk up too. They laugh 
and say that it is very “ American’ ’ to use the eleva¬ 
tors. Sometimes there is a driveway into the central 
court. The carriages enter through a big arch that 
extends as high as the first story. 

An important point in building these huge houses is 
to have all the rooms light. Only the most modern 
and the most expensive ones have this convenience. 
Another advantage the finer flats possess is that in 
them the servants need not live with the family, but 
have their own rooms up in the top story. In spite of 
everything, though, even in these homes, the dining¬ 
room, kitchen, bed rooms, and parlor are all on the 
same floor. And the walls are not very often “ dead¬ 
ened.' ’ As a result sounds can be heard along way. 
Sometimes the mistress of an apartment plays her 
piano in her sitting room, and the cook on the floor 
above sings a song to the neighbor’s music. 

This trouble about noises is very hard on little 
folks. If they did not have the parks to shout in, 
they could hardly get along. Even out in the big 
public halls of their own buildings, they have to keep 
quiet, because if they do not, the other tenants will 
complain. 

These flats nearly always have hard wood floors, 
which the ladies take great pride in keeping highly 
polished. Sometimes they are so slippery that we can 
hardly stand upon them. Pretty rugs are laid across 
the floors. But one funny thing about the homes is 


46 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


that only the very best of them contain any bath 
rooms and hot water pipes! The Parisians either go 
to public bath-rooms and pay to take a bath, or else 
they have their water heated at home in a stewing 
pan, and use little tin tubs. It seems to us, who are 
accustomed to such quantities of hot water, as though 
the French were very stingy with it. 

Some of the apartments have ten and twelve rooms. 
The children of the rich always have a nursery, where 
they play, study and sleep. Very often the nurse has 
a room, too, next to this one. The wealthy French 
lady entertains a great deal, and gives many elegant 
dinners. Her dining room, therefore, is usually-beau- 
tifuily furnished. She has dinner sets that cost thou¬ 
sands of dollars. 

But no matter how rich she may be, she is always 
economical about her household supplies. The cook 
does the marketing. She has a regular allowance to 
spend on things to eat. If anything is left over at the 
end of a week, she may keep it. But there is seldom 
anything left over! After the cook has brought the 
groceries home, the mistress locks them up and takes 
the keys. Each day she gives out what is needed. 
The mistress, indeed,keeps the keys to everything. 

1 A very important thing in the world to French 
people is wealth. And the French servant, who is as 
much bent on gain as any of her countrymen, is not 
at all times careful to be honest. 

The French servant is a very ignorant and very inde¬ 
pendent person, but always cheerful, neat and indus¬ 
trious. 

Lunch is usually served between eleven and twelve. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


47 


This is a light meal, but the food is always well cooked 
and such delicious soups, vegetables, salads, cream 

cheese and past¬ 
ries can nowhere 
else be found. 
The people eat 
a great deal of 
bread and fruit. 

No French 
child is ever al¬ 
lowed at the 
family table un¬ 
til it knows how 
to behave and 
eat with pro- 
priety. It is 
never allowed to 
leave uneaten 
any morsel of 

AN OPEN AIR LUNCH. f ° 0cl th&t haS 

Photographed by Mrs. R. F. Fitz. been put On its 

plate. To do so would be regarded as very bad 
manners in either old or young. It is also wasteful, 
and no French woman will allow any food on the 
table to be wasted. 

The French people possess two characteristics which 
every traveler is sure to notice—first their economy 
and secondly their politeness. Their thrift does not 
always please, for it prevents their tables fiom being 
bountifully supplied with food. But their beautiful 
manners go far toward making life pleasant. 

The French mother always gives a great deal of 









48 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

time to her children. She spends many hours in the 
nursery every day. Sometimes, when she is giving a 
dinner, she has the nurse dress the little tots in 
their best clothes and bring them, for a short time, 
into the dining room. Occasionally the children 
“speak a piece,” and are applauded by all of the com¬ 
pany. The little girls are scarcely ever out of their 
mamma’s sight. They grow up by her side. They 
tell her everything they think and everything that 
happens, and long before they are young ladies, they 
have grown to feel that she is more their big sister 
than their mother. 

The poor people live in apartments, too. The only 
difference is that their rooms are not bright and new. 
Many of the older houses have big, awkward iron 
shutters that open sideways on hinges. 

The French woman, however, loves to wash and 
mend her curtains, and see them clean, no matter how 
coarse they are. She takes pride in the pictures 
which always hang on her walls. They are sure to 
be prints from famous French productions. 

An interesting person in all of these buildings, rich 
or poor, is the concierge, or keeper. In the fine ones, 
he lives in fair comfort with his wife, and together 
they attend to the duties of the office. In the poorer 
ones, the pay is so small that the man usually seeks 
other employment and the woman looks after the 
building. She has to scrub down the stairs, keep the 
halls clean, receive the mail from the postman and 
give it to the tenants; take in the parcels that como 
and answer all sorts of questions that people ask her. 
Telegraph boys want to know what flat a certain per- 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 49 

son lives in; callers who have come to see somebody 
who no longer lives there, want to know where their 
triend has moved. She is busy from morning until 
night; and at night her rest is often broken. People 
coming home late wake her up to let them into the 
building. These same people get up early the next 
morning, and disturb her sleep by their heavy tread. 

She is usually not on very good terms with the ten¬ 
ants. They insist that she gets provoked with them 
over nothing and will not bring their mail for hours. 
Sometimes they complain to the agent for the build¬ 
ing, but he usually keeps his concierge and lets the 
tenants go, if they insist that one or the other move. 

The French people are not very neighborly. Some¬ 
times they live side by side for years without know¬ 
ing each others’ names. 

Besides the hotels and apartments in Paris, there are 
a great many other places where people live. These 
are called “pensions” and are really boarding houses. 
Some of them are quite elegant in their furniture and 
expensive in their prices. Others are very cheap and 
given over to clerks and shop girls. 

The presence of this large, independent class in 
Paris, causes a great many cheap restaurants to flour¬ 
ish. They occupy a very little space on the ground 
floor of some large building often, and are usually 
crowded. For a small sum one can get a good meal 
at such places. Everything, even napkins, butter, 
knives and forks, has a price of its own. If we are 
feeling rich, we can eat at a table covered with a 
tablecloth. This will cost a little more; perhaps a 
cent extra. 


50 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


We can make out an excellent bill of fare for our¬ 
selves The first thing to take, under all circum¬ 
stances, if we want to do as the French do, is bouillion. 



Then we can order whatever kind of meat we want 
and a vegetable or two, and a pint of sour wine, or 
a bottle of mineral water, as the water of Paris is not 
pure. These will be served to us in courses, though. 

We do not eat 
our meat and 
vegetables t o- 
gether. If we 
like we can order 
some dessert , or 
we may wait 
and buy fine 
fruit at the 
stand around 
the corner and 
take it to a park 
to eat. 

Little restau¬ 
rants of this 
kind are scatter¬ 
ed all over Paris. 
They are run by 
a man named 
Duval. He is 
a prosperous butcher, and he started his restaurants 
for the purpose of using up his scraps of meat. Other 
eating places much like these are frequent, and are 
called the “workingmen’s restaurants.” They are 
very noisy and the tablecloths are not always clean. 


A WORKMAN S FAMILY 
Photographed by Mrs. R. F. Fitz. 









A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


51 


It is not especially pleasant for the working people 
to stay m their homes of evenings. Their rooms are 
small, and very likely are too hot in summer and too 
cold in winter. The inhabitants, in consequence, go 
often to the parks, but more often they go to the 
workingmen’s cafes. In one of them on a certain 
evening, we see a group of laborers in their overalls 
and blue blouses drinking beer and chatting at one 
table. At another an elderly woman is knitting 
beside her husband. A fine looking young girl over 
in a corner plays dominoes with her mother, and at 
another table, all by himself, an old, old man takes 
some bread and bologna sausage from his pocket. 
He eats it and drinks the black coffee which he has 
ordered, and in this way avoids a lonely dinner in a 
dismal room by himself. Some shabby little boys 
are reading aloud at another table and laughing. 
The noise they make sounds very cheerful and home¬ 
like. These meeting places are to the poor people 
really more like homes than their homes* themselves. 

Another recreation that the French indulge in often, 
rich and poor alike, is picnicing. ' The‘woman packs 
up a lunch of salad, bologna, cheese, good French 
bread which needs no butter, and some wine. The 
man hires a cab, which is very cheap in Paris, and 
they then, with all their children, drive out to some 
pretty park or suburb and dine. 

A Parisian will never stay in the house when he can 
help it. 

There are more humble inhabitants of Paris than 
the clerks and the ordinary workingmen. There are 
the rag pickers, the cigar pickers (already mentioned) 


52 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

and the rat catchers. In one part of the city there is 
a whole colony where rag pickers live. The cottages 
are all exactly alike and they rent for sixty cents a 
week. 

The rag pickers are closely organized They divide 
the city into districts, and over each of them they 
place a superintendent, or head rag picker. The next 
most important man is the one who goes about early 
in the morning and gathers the rags out of the streets. 
He is followed by another who gets what the first has 
overlooked. His pay is not so large, seldom over 
forty cents a day, in fact. The head rag picker gets 
as much as a dollar and a quarter. They sell their 
plunder to the paper mills. People do not often take 
this up as a lasting profession. They go into it until 
they can get other work. 

Rat catchers make even less wages. The city does 
pay a very slight premium, however, for all of these 
vermin that are caught. 

A large number of people in Paris have no occupa¬ 
tion whatever, except begging. They study how 
best to work on people’s sympathies and get money 
out of them, just as some men study law or any other 
business. These beggars all have to have some sort 
of a home, though, for the government will not tol¬ 
erate houseless citizens. It does a great deal, how¬ 
ever, to aid these unfortunate poor. There are big 
houses where one can go and sleep on the floor for 
three nights in succession for three sous. After the 
three nights are up, sometimes the outcast goes to a 
cafe and spends the night. The way he manages to 
stay is this; he buys a drink and takes a sip of it every 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 53 

few hours. In the meantime he sleeps. Until it is all 
gone the proprietor has no right to put him out, and 
the customer sees to it that the drink holds out until 
morning. 

THE CHILDREN OF PARIS. 

Paris has been called the Paradise of Children, and 
the traveler after a short stay readily understands why. 

In no other city or country are the 
rights of children so regarded and 
their comfort and amusements care¬ 
fully planned for. In no other city 
or country are they more tenderly 
watched and carefully guarded 
Almost every French child is bap¬ 
tised and for this ceremony it is 
dressed in elaborate robes and carried 
to church. The god-father presents 
gifts to the baby, the mother and to 
the god-mother. Boxes of candy 
are sent to acquaintances. 

A SCHOOL BOY „ . 

photographed by I he babies are usually named af- 
Mrs.R. f. buz. ^er the saints. It is customary for 
them to wear white and pale blue—the colors of 
Mary, the mother of Jesus. All babies are placed un¬ 
der her protection. 

Some parents send their children to the country to 
be nursed and cared for by the peasant women. 
These little ones are reared exactly like the country 
children and become very strong and healthy, in the 
pure country air. When they go back to the city 
and are obliged to wear shoes and stockings and 







54 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


stay in-doors much of the time, they are at first 
quite unhappy. But school work then begins and 
country joys are partly forgotten. 

There are no children more respectful or obedient to 
their parents and teachers than the French little ones. 
They give almost no trouble to those who have the 
care of them. They are cheerful, and gentle and 
amiable, and very polite. They are very particular 
about their appearance too, and would much prefer to 
stay at home than to appear in public in clothes that 
are not neat and clean. They are very fond of pretty 
clothes. 

So dainty and particular in dress, speech and man¬ 
ners are the French children that travelers sometimes 
think them vain and affected. But their charming 
manners do much to make life pleasant for those who 
live with them and meet them daily. Every child 
among them dances, and during carnival week is al¬ 
lowed to go to fancy dress parties and balls. 

They love to go to plays and never tire of their 
Punch and Judy shows. 

EDUCATION. 

Life is not all play for French children. They 
know how to work too; and they study hard. Their 
parents urge them to do this, for a good education is 
necessary in order to fit them for desirable postions, 
when grown. The government has charge of some of 
the best positions to be had, and the state officials do not 
give them to any young men they may happen to like. 
All applicants must take examinations, and for these 
examinations, the boys prepare for years. Sometimes 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


55 


the children pursue their studies at home, sometimes 
at schools. The boys enter the schools or colleges 
early. 

Boys and girls do not recite together in the same 
classes after their eighth or ninth year. It is against 
the law for them to do so, even in private schools. 
After they grow up, however, and go to college, they 
can once more recite together. Still, a few years ago 
they could not even do this. 

The girls’ schools are different from the boys’ in 
their courses of study, though they go by the same 
name. When a boy has finished his school and passed 
his examinations he can enter the university. But 
a girl who has finished her school and wants to go to 
college, has to take up Greek, Latin and Higher 
Mathematics. Her brothers took these subjects in 
their early boyhood. 

School usually begins at eight o’clock and con¬ 
tinues to four in the afternoon, with two hours for 
dinner. It is hard for pupils to keep quiet so long, 
but keep silence they must, else they lose recreation 
and possible honors. 

Rewards are given to the pupils who are most in¬ 
dustrious and obedient too. A medal or ribbon dec¬ 
oration is eagerly looked forward to, among the pupils, 
and proudly worn upon the breast if won. They are 
expected to be as polite and careful in their deport¬ 
ment as grown up people, and they have little chance 
to idle away their time. A teacher or governess 
is constantly with them to watch their studies, assist 
them and urge them to do their best. 

When girls begin lessons they put on a black smock 


56 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


frock, to protect their garments from ink. This reaches 
from the chin to the bottom of the skirt and keeps 
the dress clean. 

The girls of Paris—and of all France—are frequent¬ 
ly sent to a convent to be educated. These schools 
carry one about as far as the high schools of this 



SCHOOL IN BRITTANY 


country. But in addition to the “book knowledge,” 
the girls acquire in these places, they learn a great 
many other things. The kind, gentle Catholic sisters 
teach them to have pretty, gracious manners. They 
also teach the girls how to make their own dresses 
and to embroider. And they nearly always, by 
example, teach their charges to be devout. The yard 
of the school is enclosed by a high stone wall, and 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


57 


when they go upon the street, they usually go in 
groups with one or two sisters for chaperons. 

A great many children of the higher classes do not 
go to school at all, but have a governess or a tutor at 
their own homes. When they are small they have a 
nurse. This woman, if she is well enough educated, 
undertakes to instruct them when they are older. It 
is seldom, however, that she knows anything about 
books, and when the children are between five and six 
she is usually dismissed and a “nursery governess’’ 
takes her place. But sometimes in very well-to-do 
families she is kept until the children are young men 
and young ladies, and a governess also is brought into 
the family. Then again, a governess is often engaged 
to come for two or three hours each day, hear he r 
little pupils’ lesson, and depart. 

HOLIDAYS. 

The children of France have many holidays. New 
Years is the .favorite day, because they receive more 
presents than they do on Christmas. The people 
visit each other, and exchange good wishes, and pres¬ 
ents are fairly showered on the little ones. The 
streets are filled with people, all intent on having a 
gay time. 

The French children call their Santa Claus “Pere 
Noel”, which means Father Christmas. Some one 
dressed to represent him comes to the houses and 
rewards the children who have been good during the 
year. He is accompanied by a person known as 
“Rupprecht” who carries abundle of switches to pun¬ 
ish the children who have been naughty. 


58 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


The shoe takes the place of the stocking at Christ¬ 
mas time, and it is always placed in a corner of the 
room by the children, with the hope that it will be filled 
by “Noel.” It is only the children who have gifts. 

The grown people receive no presents and send no 
Christmas cards or letters. The night before Christ¬ 
mas the shops are ablaze with lights; the restaurants 
keep open all night and are decorated with greens and 
have Christmas trees in their windows. In the “Bon 
Marche,” there is a huge tree every Christmas, loaded 
with presents for the poor children. Every one goes 
to church Christmas morning, where is usually to 
be found a creche representing the Holy Child, his 
mother, and Joseph. The scenery of the Holy Land 
is in the background. 

Easter is another holiday,when the shops are full of 
Easter eggs of chocolate and sugar. Some of these 
are as big as one’s head, are hollow and full of beau¬ 
tiful things. 

The first of April is celebrated by the giving of 
gifts. The presents are called “April Fish.” These 
fish are usually made of paper mache and of all kinds, 
shapes and sizes. They are also hollow and filled 
with articles either beautiful, useful or ridiculous. 

There are certain days in the year when the Luxem¬ 
bourg, and in fact all of Paris, is gayer than usual. 
Such, for instance, are the days of the Mardi Gras. 
They come just before Lent in what’s known as Carni¬ 
val week. Paris sets this time apart for special cele¬ 
bration, and the people have long processions almost 
every day. 

When the procession breaks up, the people go in 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


59 


crowds to the different masked balls which are being 
held all over Paris. Many of them are given in the 
theatres. Early in the mornings, crowds of revellers in 
their fancy dresses flock to the cafes for breakfast. 
These festivities last for a week. 

The children also share in the merry making. They 
come on the streets in fancy costumes. For a few 
pennies they buy big bags full of tiny round pieces of 
paper of many colors. With these little things, called 
“confetti,” they pelt the passers by, and often engage 
also in lively battles against each other. On these 
days the respect which the children usually show to 
their elders is a little relaxed. Even a shy-looking 
little maiden will throw a handful of confetti into a 
stranger’s face. It may be funny enough for the little 
girl, but it is not such a joke for the person to get the 
paper out of his hair and clothes, for it sticks like burs. 

In the middle of August, the French have a religious 
fete in honor of the Virgin. The day before this cele¬ 
bration the city is decorated with flowers. Wagons 
from every direction line the roads up and around the 
flower market. And that great open place is itself a 
flaming mass of color. Every woman, man, and child 
on the street carries pots of lilies. They are taking 
them to their homes and to the churches. A big pro¬ 
cession marches in the boulevards on the sacred day. 
A church officer in flowing robes walks first. Boys in 
surplices follow, singing. Little girls in white come 
after them. Then follow sisters of Mercy and clergymen. 

A great many holidays seem to be observed in 
this country. This is pleasant for the French people, 
but not always so for travelers. We often find 


60 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

public buildings closed because or these holidays. 

The French people have a celebration on the four¬ 
teenth of July which is much like ours of the fourth of 

that month. It 
is to celebrate 
the fall of the 
Bastille at the 
beginning of the 
French Revolu¬ 
tion. This Bas¬ 
tille was a hor- 
rible prison 
where many in¬ 
nocent people 
were often im¬ 
prisoned for life. 
The people tore 
the building 
down, and set 
the prisoners 
free. The stones 
of this building 
were carried 
away and used for bridges and other public buildings. 
The spot is now marked with a column, crowned with 
a figure of Liberty. 

It is against the law of France to shoot fire crackers 
on the 14th of July, but the boys seem not to even 
miss them at all. At night, the people, gayly dressed, 
dance in the streets, and the city provides fireworks 
such as are never seen at any other time and place. 
They are shot off in the middle of the Seine. 



A RELIGIOUS PROCESSION 
Photographed by Mrs. R. F Fitz. 








A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE 


61 


The holiday pleasures most enjoyed by the little folks 
of France are perhaps the plays, the Punch and Judy 
shows, the circus and Gingerbread Fairs. A Ginger¬ 
bread Fair is something never to be forgotten. On 
approaching it one sees a little village of tents and each 
tent has some attraction. There are merry-go-rounds 
and swings and balloons in which one can ride, and to¬ 
boggan slides and clowns and jugglers and acrobats. 
Then there are stacks of toys, streets of them and 
candy, and last and best of all mountains of gingerbread, 
and so very cheap that the poorest child may buy. 

PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS. 

In addition to the cafes, Paris is supplied with a 
great many parks, pleasure-grounds and public squares 
in which to take the air and amuse oneself. In no 
other city in the world has such careful provision been 
made for the recreation and enjoyment of the people. 
Pleasure-grounds are to be found at every turn, and 
all are open to the children. 

Thursdays the play-grounds and parks are most 
crowded, for it is vacation day in Paris. The children 
away at boarding school come home, and their 
parents devote much of their day to them, and 
accompany them in their walks. 

Sometimes it is the Bois de Boulogne that is 
visited, and again the Champs Elysses, the Luxem¬ 
bourg, the Tuileries, and the open squares of the Palais 
de Royal. 

The finest and most fashionable of the parks is the 
Bois de Boulogne, at the edge of the city, past the 
Arch of Triumph. 



62 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

It has hundreds of acres of hill and valley, pic¬ 
turesque lakes, and winding walks, thickets of trees, 
and fields covered with thick green turf such as one 
never sees in the States. 

A part of the park is given up to a collection of 
plants and animals, where the children love to visit the 


BOIS de BOULOGNE. 

conservatories and aquariums and watch the fish 
and water fowl, and birds and animals in huge cages. 
The park is a fine place, too, for making mud pies, 
for the streets of Paris are too clean to provide mud 
for this purpose. 

The Garden of Plants is filled with great conserva¬ 
tories of rare flowers and tropical palms and other 
plants. This is a favorite resort of students and 









A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


63 


scientists who wish to study plant life in many 
forms. 

On Sundays and holidays the people of Paris love 
to go out into the suburbs with their families and 
visit the famous old chateaux/palaces, art galleries 
and churches to be found there. Among the most 
interesting of these places are Versailles, St. Germain, 
St. Cloud and Fontainbleau. 

THE SUBURBS OF PARIS. 

Versailles lies about ten miles southwest of Paris. 
To get there we take the steam tramway bound west¬ 
ward and ride for an hour and a half, Versailles turns 
out to be a little city, densely inhabited, clean and 
beautifully laid out like Paris itself. The chief object 
of interest, we know, is the palace, that was formerly 
the residence of the kings of France, but is now a 
magnificent historical museum. 

It owes its grandeur to Louis XIV, who held his 
court there. To build it cost the treasury of France 
a thousand million francs. Louis XVI saw this stately 
home of his invaded by a mob. Louis Philippe 
restored what the rabble destroyed and made a nart 
of it into a historical picture gallery. 

Its rooms and corridors are filled with paintings, stat¬ 
ues and historic mementos, illustrative of all the men 
and great events that have reflected honor on France. It 
seems to us that we walk for miles just going in and out 
of the rooms that are thrown open. We see the famous 
bull’s eye room, so called because of its oval window. 
We see the bed room of Louis XIV, where the furni¬ 
ture remains very much as he left it. The picture 



04 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

gallery is hung with numbers of his portraits. It 
contains aho the portraits of all of the French rulers 
down to the time of Napoleon the III. There are 
miles of these pictures, if they were placed side by 
side. 


Several noted peace treaties were signed at this 
Palace, among them the treaty of 1783, in which Eng¬ 
land recognized the independence of the United States. 
The gardens about the building are laid out in stiff 
designs like those we have seen in Paris, and the 
lawns ornamented with fountains, of one of which we 
have heard. 


GALLERY OF BATTLES, VERSAILLES. 





A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


65 


To witness this fountain at play is a wonderful 
spectacle and one not often granted to the people, 
because of the great expense attending it. It is said 
to cost one hundred dollars a minute while at play. 
At stated intervals during the summer the Paris 
papers announce that on a certain day the Fountains 
at Versailles will play, and on this day thousands of 
people gather to witness the beautiful sight. 

St. Germain was the birthplace of this great French 
king, and after driving there to see its chateau and 
gardens, we start again for Paris. On our way 
we stop at St. Cloud to see its monastery. 
It was founded by Clovis, the first French ruler. 
While here we see other beautiful but conven¬ 
tional gardens, but no palace. There was a gor¬ 
geous one built in 1572 by a rich citizen. Louis XIV 
bought it for a present to his brother. Louis XVI 
again bought it for his queen, Marie Antoinette. But 
in the war between France and Prussia, 1870, it was 
burned. 

SEVRES. 

On our way home we stop at Sevres. The attraction 
of this town is not its palaces, but its manufacturing 
establishments. Here is where the world-famous 
Sevres china is made. We have brought with us a 
permit countersigned by the chief of police from 
Paris, or we would not have been allowed to enter the 
shops. The managers are very polite, and give us a 
guide who will show off the wonders to us. He takes 
us first to the exhibition rooms of the place. The 
walks are of tiling made of Sevres china, and decor¬ 
ated with vases costing thousands of dollars apieca: 


66 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

We see after-dinner-coffee-cups which, we think, we 
should liKe to buy as souvenirs. On inquiring the 
price of one, we find it to be $750. So we decide not 
to buy it. In another room are some of the most 
famous and highly paid artists in Paris, at w r ork 
designing patterns for china. 

We cannot quite understand yet, though, what 
makes china cost so very much. But in another room we 
see the men at work, modeling the pieces. One of 
them shapes out for us, in a second or two, a little 
cup like the one we wanted to buy. Then he asks us. 
pleasantly if we would like to take it into our hands; 
very gently he sets it in the palm, but the next in¬ 
stant it falls to pieces. So fragile are the little things, 
that it takes years to learn to handle them before 
they have hardened. And now we begin to under¬ 
stand why they cost so much! 

Let us next visit the manufactory at Cluny, and 
see the girls making lace. They sit side by side sew¬ 
ing it, stitch by stitch, with their fingers, not with 
machines. How hard those fine stitches must be on 
the eyes. It seems courious to see them all in that 
great place, sewing, because usually the peasant 
women are allowed to take the work to their own 
homes and make it there. 

FONTAINEBLEAU. 

The next suburb that we visit is Fontainbleau. 
It lies south of Paris and is further away from the 
cities than any of the others. We go by boat on the 
Seine. Some villages lie between it and Paris. When 
we get there we find that the whole place—consisting 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE 


67 



GALLERY OF HENRY II. PALACE OF FOUNTAINEBLEAU 





































68 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


of thousands of acres—is laid out as a park. Beauti¬ 
ful woods cover parts of it, with deer running about. 
Fountains, statues, and fine walks abound. And 
hidden somewhere (almost outshone by its other beau¬ 
ties) is an old chateau. Many lovely houses are built 
on the grounds and are inhabited by the very rich 
people. Hotels furnish accommodations for tourists. 
Summer cottages are for rent. Indeed the place is a 
summer resort, and it surely is a very pleasant place 
to spend a hot season. 

The Palace of Fontainebleau is one of the most inter¬ 
esting and finely decorated Chateaux in all Paris. It 
was the favorite residence of Napoleon I. It was in 
the palace court yard that the Emperor said farewell 
to his Old Guard, before he was sent into exile. 

From the windows of this palace one looks out over 
a park towards the famous Forest of Fontainbleau, 
that covers an area of about fifty miles in circumfer¬ 
ence. 

Fontainebleau is the largest of all the forests in 
France, and there are many. One can travel in it in 
one direction for twenty miles. Some of the wood is 
wild, and in that part Millet used to love to roa.m. 
If we walk out into a particularly dense part, we will 
come upon a little clearing. In the middle of it stands 
a stone with a bronze tablet in it, bearing the name 
“Millet.” 

Rosa Bonheur’s home was in the Forest, near the 
Fontainebleau Palace, where Napoleon III and the 
Empress Eugenie lived much of the time. She was 
fond of hunting and sketching in the woods near this 
place and lived here very quietly, working hard every 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


69 



day. Many distinguished people came to this forest 
home to get a glimpse of the little woman. 

The wood has always been a favorite resort of art¬ 
ists, but is now very popular with all sorts of people, 
bent on excursions and picnics. The roads through 
the forest are usually enlivened with people walking, 
riding, driving, on bicycles or in automobiles. 

THE VILLAGE OF BARBIZ0N. 

At the edge of the forest stands the village of Bar- 
bizon, made famous by the artists who have made it 

their home. Many 
travelers drive 
there through the 
forest, stopping at 
one of the wayside 
inns for refresh¬ 
ments. Some of 
these inns are new 
and fine;others are 
old and interest¬ 
ing, and at one of 
the latter near 
Barbizon we stop 
for lunch. 

The place has 
evidently been a 
favorite with the 
artists who have 

TAKING AN AIRING. 

Photographed by Mrs R. F Fitz. lived here, for the 

walls of the house 

are almost entirely covered with pictures. Most of 





70 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FEANCE. 


these have been given to the landlady by artists who 
could not pay their board. We are just outside the 
village and a few minutes brings us to the quaint little 
place. 

A tramway connects the village with the railway a 
few miles distant, and a clumsy engine goes puffing 
through the one long, narrow street. The place is 
made up of cottages and farm houses. The street is 
roughly paved and has on either side a narrow walk 
like that of most French villages. This walk varies in 
width, as some of the houses are built out so far that 
they take up much of the walk. This makes the 
street decidedly crooked. 

Some of the houses are set back from the street and 
have little plots of ground in front of them. Many of 
these yards are filled with flowers. 

The houses are low buildings, seldom over a story 
and a half high. Their walls are usually white, or 
are whitewashed to somei delicate tint of yellow, pink, 
or gray. The roofs are tile, originally red, but soft¬ 
ened to an indefinite color by age. High walls often 
are built around the houses like fences. Vines and 
roses literally cover these odd structures, outside wall 
and all. 

In front of the houses are stone steps, useful also as 
seats. Here sit the old women of the household, knit¬ 
ting, or performing other household duties, and talk¬ 
ing to their neighbors across the way. In the evening 
the members of the family gather and rest from their 
labors. The old women wear white caps or colored 
kerchiefs, and the men blue blouses and wooden 
shoes, but the younger people dress as do the labor- 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


71 


ing people of Paris. We will have to go farther from 
Paris to see the quaint peasant costumes sometimes 
worn. 

When we ex¬ 
press a desire to 
see the interior 
of one of these 
homes the driver 
offers to take us 
to a farm house 
at the end of the 
village, where 
his cousin lives. 
The old lady in 
charge of the 
house greets us 
pleasantly and 
explains that 
her son and 
daughter-in-law 
are away work- 

A WAYSIDE HOME. . . J . , 

Photographed by Mrs. R. F. Fitz. ing m the fields. 

She is taking care of the grandchildren. 

The children are every one dressed alike. They 
have on the plainest kind of brown dresses, with aprons 
of the same material. The latter have big pockets in 
them. On their little legs are coarse knitted stock¬ 
ings. They wear them winter and summer. So no 
wonder the women have to keep knitting all the time, 
to supply the demand. 

The grandmother takes us out into the only other 
room down stairs. It is dining room and kitchen in 
one, and is very large. 









72 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

The floor is made of tile. A clock ticks in its long, 
old fashioned case. Shining copper vessels are lined 
up along some wooden shelves, and colored china ware 
decorates the open cupboard. A kneading trough 
stands in one corner. The walnut table in the middle 
of the room, has been rubbed until it shines. 

Half across one wall spreads an open fireplace. 
Some wood burns as it lies across the andirons. Over 
the blaze hangs a copper kettle. In it a few potatoes 
are boiling. We see by the water mark left high up 
on the inside of the kettle that it had been full. But 
most of the boiled potatoes had gone to feed the pigs, 
no doubt. Looking out of the back door we can see 
the farmyard of the family. The cows wear muz¬ 
zles and plunge their noses into great stone troughs 
of water, built for them. 

In almost every household one may find a grand¬ 
mother. There are two reasons for this. The mother 
goes to the fields to work with the other grown-up 
members of the family, and the grand-mother must 
take care of the children. Then it is the custom in 
France for old people to give their property to their 
sons and daughters before they themselves die. So 
the grand parents must then live with the children. 

Out in the fields beyond the house, we can see the 
women are working with the men. They hoe and weed 
and make hay and carry loads of wood from the forest 
or tend to the cows and stock on the farm. But the 
fact that these women work in the fields is no sign that 
they are poor. They do this because they are anxious 
to make money. The women of France are very in¬ 
dustrious, thrifty and saving of the pennies as well as 
the dollars. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


73 


When it is possible, the well-to-do peasants live in 
villages and ride out each morning to their work. Some 
of their little farms are too far away, however, and in 
these cases the family lives on their property in the 
country, as the farmer does in the United States. 
Many of the villagers are too poor, however, to own 
farms and homes and they rent rooms in these little 
village houses for two or three francs a week and do 
the hard work in the fields. Some of them do not even 
have any one town that they live in, but go about the 
country cutting wood, towing canal boats, and doing 
whatever odd job they can get. 

It was these people 
| whom Millet loved to 

| paint and to be with. 

He wore the peasant 
dress and labored in 
the field and in his gar¬ 
den as did the other 
peasants. He lived in 
a low, dark little house, 
no better than theirs, 
and found it as difficult 
to secure bread for his 
family as many of the 
humble t laborers. His 
home does not look 
now as it did when he 
lived here. It has been 
enlarged and fitted up 
with many comforts and conveniences. 

A little farther down the street is the old home of 





JSUfc\ 

* 











74 ' 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


Rousseau, another famous artist and a friend of Millet. 
The house sets back from the street in the shadow of 
tall trees. The yard is made attractive with shrub¬ 
bery, and over the door-way roses clamber. Next to it 
is a little church, but it was not here during the lifetime 
of Millet. He worshipped at a little chapel at Chailly, 
two miles distant. 


If we drive 
out of the village 
a little way we 
can see the 
tower of this 
church. Many 
people believe 
that it is the one 
dimly pictured 
in “The An¬ 
gel us/’ his most 
famous picture. 
What is the 



THE ANGELUS. 
From a Painting by Millet. 


meaning of the picture and its name, you ask? Millet 
has tried to show us when he pictured these peasants 
in the field, with their heads bowed in prayer. 

There is a beautiful custom observed in the Catholic 
countries of Europe, of ringing the church bells at 
morning, noon and eventime for silent prayer. This is 
the Angelus. At one time it was observed in France, 
but now the ringing of the bells is recognized only as 
a signal that it is time to begin or stop work. 

France is said to be a country without religion, but 
the Catholic religion has a greater number of follow¬ 
ers than any other church. There are many fine 
cathedrals in France. As we ride through the coun- 




A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


75 



REIMS CATHEDRAL. 

the houses are grouped around it. No matter how 
poor the people or plain the homes, the cathedral 
always contains costly stained glass windows and 


try and visit other villages and towns we find that a 
cathedral usually forms the center of the town and 

mhhhhhh^hhhhhi 













76 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


elaborate decorations in the way of carvings, statues 
and other ornamentation. 

The most beautiful cathedral of all France is at 
Amiens. It is the third in size in Europe, and its 
exquisite beauty arouses the wonder and admiration 
of every traveller who visits it. Rouen, Orleans and 
Reims also have fine Cathedrals. 

The country roads of France are fine, and many 
pleasant days might be spent driving through the 
rural districts. The country is divided up into small 
well-tilled farms, and there are many towns and vil¬ 
lages scattered over the hills and plains. 

These villages are very picturesque, with their queer 
shaped houses with thatched or red tiled roofs. The 
streets are much like alleys, and not always clean. 

NORMANDY. 

Let us now take the train and speed away for the 
coast and the quaint old provinces of Normandy and 
Brittany. Artists find them more attractive than any 
other parts of France. 

The coach that we are in is not large. It seats but 
eight people. At the places where the train crosses 
the roads, stand women, with flags in their hands. 
They are in the pay of the railroad company to warn 
the people on the highways that trains are passing. 
In their idle moments they knit. 

We see the miles of apple orchards and pasture land 
for which Normandy is famous. Further on we see a 
man ploughing. His plough is a crooked wooden 
stick. He drives oxen. 

The passenger beside us, seeing our surprise, 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


77 


explains that there are few modern plows used in 
France and that oxen are often used, because so much 
stronger than horses. The men wear blouses and 
round hats. They drive primitive-looking two-wheeled 
carts and big Normandy houses. The country is rich 



A NORMANDY FARMYARD. 


in apples, and one of the principal occupations of 
these people is to make cider. The pasture land of 
Normandy is fine and the people raise excellent cattle. 
When we drive through the province, we frequently 
come across crude old buildings, built hundreds of 









78 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


years ago. Much of the rock is carved with queer 
figures, prows of ships and grotesque heads and fish. 
This is all the work of the early conquerors. 

Some of the houses are comfortable and pretty, but 
when we get further away from the cities, the dwell¬ 
ings are very rude, indeed. Many that we see have 
their walls of mud and the roofs of thatch. The floor 
is the bare earth, and in some of the kitchens, we get 
a glimpse of chickens scratching. The drainage, 
which is bad all over France, is worst in Normandy, 
and we often encounter very unwholesome smells. 
The water is seldom fit to drink. 

Through many of the doorways in this part of the 
country, we see women spinning. In one of the front 
yards, a woman with a bucket full of mud, is mending 
the holes in the walls of her house. 

The people wear wooden shoes. The women speak 
bad French. Most of the men speak well, however, 
because they have been obliged to go and serve in the 
army for three years, and while away from home have 
learned their own language. 

The people of this province are not wholly of French 
blood. Hundreds of years ago, a race of men called 
Northmen conquered this part of France and settled 
here. They are the same men who conquered Eng¬ 
land at about that time. To this day, the people of 
Normandy differ from other Frenchmen in looks, 
manner and speech. They are large, straight-limbed 
and blue-eyed and carry themselves well. They are 
very proud of their province. 

The chief city of Normandy is Rouen, which lies 
upon the Seine. It is fifth in size of the cities of 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 79 

France and full of historic interest. The city at first 
glance looks almost commonplace. Great chimneys 
pour out smoke over everything, for the place has 
become a great cotton manufacturing center! But it 
is celebrated chiefly as the place of the execution of Joan 
of Arc. Of all of her historical characters, France loves 



A NORMANDY HOUSE 


this woman the most. She was a peasant girl, 
born in the bloody times of the wars between France 
and England. 

The English were about to take Orleans and Charles 
VII of France was helpless to prevent it. Joan of 
Arc of Domremy, a village of Normandy, heard of her 
King’s peril andbrooded over it. One day she thought 






















80 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

she heard angels ’ voices calling to her to “go and de¬ 
liver France.” They kept repeating these words to her, 
and Joan felt that it meant that the Lord wanted her 
to go and lead the army for her King. 

Peasant girl though she was, bashful and poorly 
dressed, she went to call on Charles VII at Rouen. 
She met him first in a grand court room full of gorgeous¬ 
ly dressed men and women , and although she had never 
seen the King before, and nobody pointed him out to 
her, the people who were there say she knew which 
person he was and went up to him. 

Charles VII let her lead the army. He even gave 
her a suit of armor. Riding at the head of the regi¬ 
ment, a few days later, she raised the siege of Orleans. 
The French after this fairly bowed down and wor¬ 
shiped her. In another battle,later, against the English, 
she was wounded. When she left her soldiers to have 
her hurt doctored, the men grew discouraged and be¬ 
gan to retreat. Immediately she ran out, jumped on 
her horse and rallied them to victory! 

The English were for the time driven away. Charles 
VII was crowned and Joan was!present at the church. 
Her family had been made rich, by the command of 
the King. Her name was on every tongue in France. 
This was in the winter. At the beginning of spring, 
the English fell upon Coinpiegne. Joan hurried to the 
rescue. But this time she was defeated and taken 
prisoner. May 30, 1431, the English burned her at 
the stake for a sorceress. When we walk down one of 
the busy streets of Rouen today, we come upon a slab 
stating that Joan was burned in that spot. And all 
over the city,—all over the country in fact,—statues 
and paintings keep alive her name. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


81 


If we travel northward down the Seine, we will pres¬ 
ently come to Havre, the largest seaport town of 
Prance. We find it to be a queer, old-looking place 
with narrow dirty streets. The people have more the 
manners of country folk than of the elegant Parisian . 
The hotels are rather like rural hotels. In the shop 
windows we see many products of the sea for sale, such 



LA PLACE GAMBETTA AND BASINS, HAVRE. 


as little shells and braided seaweed. Much business is 
transacted at Havre. It has a larger trade with our 
country than any seaport city except Liverpool. It 
exports wine, brandy, oil, jewelry, salted meat, butter, 
cheese, fish, and manufactured goods. The city also 
has large manufactories, and owns huge docks, which 
accommodate seven hundred ships. 

Havre has also its attractions. The picturesque vil- 








82 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



lage of St. Addresse adjoins the town, and is full of 
gardens and country residences. Havre and its neigh¬ 
borhood are much visited in the summer by Parisians 
and people who are fond of sea bathing. 

We are still in Normandy when we visit Havre. As 
we proceed northeastward along its coast and the coast 
of the neighboring province of Picardy, we find the 

land to be 
very irregular 
and steep in 
its slope to¬ 
ward the sea. 
It is barren, 
bleak, and al- 
most deso¬ 
late. Sudden 
storms render 
the sea un¬ 
safe. Yet the 
chief occupa¬ 
tion is fishing. 
When a gale 
comes up the 
fishermen 
steer for the 
open sea in¬ 
stead of try¬ 
ing to land on 
the difficult 
coast. The 
women,young 
girls, and 


A NORMANDY MAID. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


83 


grandmothers spend many of their days on the beach. 
They sit and knit, mend their nets, and gossip, but a 
secret fear is ever at their hearts. 

The interior of this northern province of Normandy 
is as interesting as the coast. The peasants do not 
come in contact with the world, and today they, for 
the most part, have the same customs and manners 
that their fathers had two centuries ago. The girls 
wear their hair plain and are not much given to deco¬ 
rating themselves. A simple white waist with short 
sleeves, no collar, and a tight-fitting corsage, is a 
favorite costume. The skirt is dark, usually brown, 
and is nearly always protected by a white apron. 



MT SAINT MICHAEL, NORMANDY. 

We travel westward until we reach the coast of 
Normandy again, and there we come upon Mount 
Saint Michael, one of the most unusual places in all 
France. 

It is a monastery and is situated on a small island 
with homes huddled around it after the manner of 






84 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



towns built in those days, when the nobles owned all 
the lands. In the middle of the place is a stronghold. 
The whole thing is built so that it can be easily 
defended. The monastery stands high on a hill, and 
with its surroundings, looks very picturesque. 

BRITTANY. 

Leaving Normandy over the western boundry we 
come into Brittany. To our surprise we cannot under¬ 
stand a word the 
people say! 
They are very 
different, not 
only in speech, 
b u t in looks, 
manners, and 
customs. In fact 
these people are 
less French than 
Welsh. They 
lack the French 
politeness. They 
are really almost 
blunt and very 
independent. 

Notice the 
thick set build 
of the girl in the 
picture and her 
peculiar dress. 
She is now in 
her Sunday 
array. No matter what occasion she was dressed for, 
however, she would scarcely omit her apron and cap. 


A BRITTANY MAID. 







A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


85 


If you should call her a French woman she would 
be much offended and tell you that she was no more 
French than German. She belongs to a separate peo¬ 
ple, the Britons of Brittany. Their history, and legends, 
and superstitions, and language are all their own. They 
do not like the French language. But every child 
in France is now obliged .to study the French language 
and school masters have been sent to different parts of 
the country to enforce this rule. So French will be 
spoken in Brittany too before many years have passed- 

Let us visit a Breton home. The houses are all 
much alike, long, straight and one storied. The house 
and barn are under the same roof. This house contains 
eight rooms. Two rooms are used by the family. The 
live stock and farm implements are housed in the 
others. One room is used as a kitchen, dining room 
and bed room, and the other as a bed room and store 
room for the family clothing and linen. The living 
room is very plainly furnished but is the most inter¬ 
esting part of this house. It contains a large fire place, 
a huge bed riveted to the wall at one side of the fire 
place, a chest, two unpainted benches and a table. 

The bed is of oak, richly carved and piled high with 
feather mattresses. On the other side of the chimney 
is a two-shelved cupboard used as a bed. The chest is 
large, heavy, and like the bed, beautifully carved. It 
contains the fine clothing and best linen of the family. 

The table is like no other table we have ever seen 
before. It is scoured as white as snow and polished 
until it shines. A number of little wells have been hol¬ 
lowed out of the table top, and in these wells is placed 
the cabbage soup that forms so large a part of the 


86 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


daily meals. There are no dishes to wash or break, you 
see. Every article of food is eaten from these little 
wells or from the fingers. 

Wooden spoons are used in place of knives and forks, 
and jugs are used as drinking vessels. The spoon rack 
and bread basket hang above the table on pulleys. 
They are kept up at the ceiling except at meal times. 
When a meal is ready the great round bread basket is 
lowered to the table and each member of the family 
breaks off the loaf as much as is desired. 

There are other things suspended from the cross 
poles of the ceiling also, bunches of fragrant herbs, 
bags of meat, candles, strings of peppers and onions. 
There are horse shoes too for good luck, for the Bretons 
are superstitious and believe in all manner of charms 
and spells. 

There is one other article suspended from the cross 
beams of the ceiling—the cradle or basket in which the 
baby spends most of his time while in doors. The 
babies are about the only members of these peasant 
families that have time to play. The children are 
trained early to assist their parents and are hard-work¬ 
ing little folk. 

The girls go to market, buy, sell, cook, spin, sew, 
knit, embroider, make lace and care for the little 
brothers and sisters. They also help to cook, cut and 
pack the sardines which their fathers and brothers 
catch. 

There goes a little Breton maid with a pail of milk 
upon her head. It is heavy, yet she walks easily and 
briskly and as she goes, knits and sings. We see other 
little girls doing the same thing every where in Brittany. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


87 


They are taught from their babyhood to carry burdens 
in this way. 

The boys carve wooden spoons and the wooden sa¬ 
bots they wear, they farm, fish, row, tend bees, and 
make and mend oyster nets. The boys are taught 
oyster fishing when very young and help their fathers 
care for their oyster beds, which are often several miles 
long. 

The oysters are caught in nets made of little iron 
rings. The nets are shaped like bags hung on chains 
and are very expensive for poor fisher-folk and 
difficult to make. 

The children often fashion toys, playthings and 
articles for sale from the oyster shells, fish bones and 
sea weed. Some of the children living near towns vis¬ 
ited by tourists, are trained not to work but to beg, 
and whenever we stop at a wayside inn we are sur¬ 
rounded by beggars little and big. 

There is one other thing that all the children are 
taught to do, and that is to dance. Whenever there is 
a fete or wherever there is a little gathering of people, 
there is sure to be dancing, and every boy and girl is 
trained to take a part. To fail in dancing certain figures 
or to dance badly is regarded as a public disgrace. 

’ The Breton peasants are very fond of bees, and al¬ 
most every country home has its colony of bees, 
which the family tends with great care and affection. 
They believe that bees were sent from heaven and take 
a blessing wherever they go. The children make play¬ 
fellows of the bees and handle them without the least 
fear. 


88 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


The Breton peasant almost lives on fish, dry bread, 
and Normandy cider. The fish they catch themselves. 
Fishing is the chief industry of the people. The long, 
rocky, bleak shores are lined with sea animals. The 
women, their skirts tucked up about their waists, wade 
far out into the w^ater seining for crabs. After work¬ 
ing hard all day to catch their fish they often walk all 
night to take it to a market. 



FISHER GIRLS. 

Photographed by Mrs. R F. Fits 


The men in small boats go on fishing expeditions. 
Bad storms are frequent, and the coast dangerous, 
how 'dangerous, the picture of Point Raz, on the 
western coast, will show. 











A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


89 



the storm all night to watch and pray. Too often the 
dawn discloses to them the corpses of their husbands 
and fathers strewn along the rocks. 

The fisheries of France are important. The princi¬ 
pal ones are the sardine fisheries on the coast of the 
bay of Biscay; those of herring and mackerel, turbet 
and salmon in the English channel, and the North 
Sea. Oyster breeding is also largely engaged in. 


Many a time a little boat has started out in the 
calm of morning, to be wrecked in a gale before night. 

These storms are the constant terror of the women. 
When they see them coming, they go in groups 
together onto the high rocks and build fires to show 
their men at sea where the coast is. They stay out in 


POINT RA.Z, BRITTANY. 








90 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE 



A STREET IN QUIMPER 















A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 91 

The French fishermen go to the Newfoundland banks 
and Iceland for their cod fish. 

No large cities are in the province of Brittany, but 
the town of Quimper has its cathedral. Its stores are 
less like real stores than like the booths in any large 
exposition. In them we shall find, all on the same 
counter, crockery, in the favorite yellow and reddish 
tints, cakes, madonnas, dry goods and fish. 

BORDEAUX. 

Leaving Brittany and traveling south we find a hilly 
region, covered with vineyards. We are in the great 
wine-making district, and soon arrive at Bordeaux, a 
city of some 260,000 people. 

It is a quaint old place built on the banks of the 
Garonne river, fifty-eight miles from its mouth. A 
beautiful bridge with seven arches reaches across the 
river. Its docks are massive and hundreds of vessels 
can be accommodated in its spacious harbor. Ship 
building is carried on extensively here. Ships are 
constantly coming and going from this port, and we 
find those leaving the port carry with them great 
quantities of wine, brandy and fruit. 

The next morning we are driven about five miles 
out to a village, and thence for a mile to a place where 
the peasants are picking grapes. The vines smell 
very sweet in the sun. The peasants nod to us 
politely, but they work almost in silence. They walk 
along, about three persons to a row, one behind the 
other, pick great bunches of grapes and drop them into 
their huge baskets. The vines are low, and the work 
makes one bend over. The sun is hot on one’s back. 


92 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



around in the shade near their little carts, where their 
ponies and donkeys are hitched. 

While they eat, the young people sing, talk and 
laugh. The older people say little and the hired 
laborers almost nothing at all. They all eat cheese 
and black bread,—the latter a form of food common 


Forty or fifty people are in this field. The neighbors 
of this land owner have all come together to help 
him, old women, boys, children, and all. 

When the sun is high overhead and the grape vines 
cast no shadows, the workers stop to dine. They 
have brought their lunches with them, and they sit 


RETURN OF THE VINTAGERS. 









A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


93 


in France, especially in this section of country. It 
is made from acorns. 

This is the last day of the picking. The people get 
through at four o’clock. The men hitch up the carts 
and load the grapes. Some of the older people get 
into the little wagons. The girls, still active after 
their ten hours of bending over the vines, hop into the 
back ends and sit with their feet dangling over the 
edge of the bed. Others of them walk. Some of the 
boys, and all of the hired laborers, do likewise. The 
former frisk beside their companions, laughing and 
dancing. The latter plod along, bent over almost as 
low as they were while at the grape vines. 

SOUTHERN FRANCE. 

We return to Bordeaux and start once more on our 
tour of France. Our next visit will be to the southern 
points of interest. We stop for two hours, however, 
at a summer resort near this western seaport town. 

It looks very different from such places at home. 
Instead of our rambling frame cottages, the dwellings 
here are large, substantial and made of brick. Big 
stores stand in the middle of the town. Out in the 
water along the shore are funny little round houses 
with donkeys hitched to them. The water here is too 
shallow for bathing. So the bathers hire these little 
movable bath houses, and let the donkeys pull them 
out to the deeper places and back again. 

The country that we pass through is made beauti¬ 
ful by pastures full of flowering weeds. The elms and 
apple trees of the north give place here to tall, 
slender poplars. For many miles in the southwest we 


94 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 

pass through a stretch of country, however, very dif¬ 
ferent from this. It is covered with loose sand and 
swept by winds, which tumble it about in misshapen 
knolls and hills. This part is called the Landes. 
Shepherds here have to go around on stilts in order 
not to sink unexpectedly in the patches of soft earth, 
and to keep sight of their flocks. When -they are not 
busy guiding their sheep into safe places, they rest on 
their stilts and knit. 

As we travel along the southern coast, we see many 
olive orchards. The trees are planted in rows. They 
grow to a height of about thirty feet and have long, 
slender, graceful leaves. Their fruits are greenish in 
color and hang like little fat balls on the trees. In 
many places men are picking them. If the olives fall 
to the earth! they are likely to be bruised. The fruit is 
not good to eat until it is pickled. The pickling of 
olives is an important industry of France. Some of 
them are not used for this purpose at all, however, but 
are crushed and robbed of their juice. The first juice 
drawn off is delicious to the taste and sells at highest 
prices for salad dressings and other table purposes. It 
is used in watch making as well. The second draughts 
of the liquid are good only for manufacturing purposes. 
Quantities of it are used in making castile soap. A 
large factory for making the soap is located at Mar¬ 
seilles. 

On one route, we speed past a village among the 
hills. Its church and stores are on the summit and 
the spires shoots high up in the air. The dwell¬ 
ing houses straggle down the slope. These are mostly 
of stone. They look as if the main purpose in building 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 05 

them had been to get something substantial. Their 
builders, sure enough, succeeded, for some of them 
have stood for hundreds of years. In the doorways 
women sit gossiping and nimbly working their lace 
bodkins. They are as skillful with these little instru¬ 
ments as a fine pianist with his piano. 



MENTONE, FRANCE. 


By and by we come to Mentone, a famous little 
resort for invalids! It is full of sub-tropical trees and 
old stone buildings. Looking northward the people 
here see in the distance the snow-capped Alps, and 
southward the warm, blue Mediterranean. 

At the southern extremity is Marseilles, the chief 






96 ^ 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 



commercial seaport of France, which has a population 
of 550,000. It has not many attractions for the 
traveler, but its fine harbor can accommodate twelve 
hundred vessels, and its exports of silk, wool, cotton, 
wines and fruits give employment to great numbers of 
people of the city and the country round about. 


CASCADE OF LOUCHAMP, MARSEILLES. 

A few miles of the south and west central portion 
of France is not like what we have been viewing. The 
valley of the Rhone is mostly tableland which was once 
the site of active volcanoes. A little strip of the south¬ 
eastern corner of France is even now wild and full of 
caverns. The shepherds use some of these hollows on 









A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


97 


the edge of the place for sheep-folds, but the interior 
everybody shuns with a superstitious dread. The 
government is making arrangements now for some 
geologists to explore it. 

The people that we see in this southern country look 
more like Spaniards than French. The shepherd girls 
whom we observe with their dogs and flocks of sheep, 
cows, and geese, are all tall and solidly built, with 
small feet. They carry themselves well and they wear 
a'costume of a short skirt and a white chemisette 
covered with lace, the whole bodice cut low in the neck. 

We are in the part of the country where the silk 
worm is raised. The diet of the silk worm is mulberry 
leaves, and we see hundreds of the trees growing. They 
are rather tall and slender, with smooth bark and large, 
heart shaped leaves. Branches do not come out from 
the trunk much below the height of seven feet. 

The chief town of southern France is Nice, a perfect 
paradise for invalids and a delightful pleasure resort 
for the tired traveler. During the winter it has many 
visitors from all parts of the world, who come on 
account of the mild climate. There are many pretty 
villas and fine hotels in the place, and during the 
winter it is a very gay and interesting place. 

We are now on the southern border of France, in the 
corner of the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. Far 
out to the southeast in the sea, we can make out the 
island of Corsica. It is a part of France, and on it 
Napoleon was born, but we shall not have time to 
visit it now. 


98 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO FRANCE. 


On the southeast border of France, lying between 
Nice and the Mediterranean, is the little kingdom or 
principality of Monaco. It is the tiniest kingdom in 
the world, for it consists of an area of less than eight 
miles. Yet it has its monarch, its castle, its little 
army and its navy. The people who live within its 
borders do not pay taxes. Its revenue is obtained from 
gambling tables at Monte Carlo. 

Monaco is a noted winter resort because of its fine 
climate, beautiful scenery and refreshing waters of the 
sea. 

The capital, Monaco, is perched on a great rock, one 
hundred and sixty feet high and jutting out half a 
mile into the sea. It is a famous little watering place, 
and the home of the Prince of Monaco. 

About a mile to the east is Monte Carlo, a town of 
hotels and handsome villas. Tens of thousands from 
all parts of the world visit it every year. Many of 
these people are attracted by the gambling at the Casino. 

This is a very large and fine building, splendidly 
decorated, and with beautiful surroundings. It is 
provided with lawn games, free reading rooms, a con¬ 
cert saloon and many resting places made attractive 
by works of art. Yet the play rooms are those often- 
est visited by visitors to Monte Carlo. Fortunes are 
lost there every day, and many lose their reason also. 
It is one of the few gambling places now permitted in 
Europe, and it is hoped that the time may soon come 
when this great curse of the country may be banished 
from this fair spot, forever. 

Our month is over. To-night we cross the Pyrenees 
and bid the sunny land of France adieu. 


PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


In pronunciation it is important to remember at the start that in French the 
emphasis or stress is generally on the last syllable. Thus it is contrary to English. 
Remember that consonants at the end of words are not sounded in French, except c f 1 r 
which are usually pronounced. 

Accents in French are signs placed over a vowel to give it a different sound from its 
ordinary pronunciation, sometimes merely to indicate the difference between two words 
of the same spelling, but different in their meanings. There are three accents, the acute 
•j ). the grave ('), the circumflex (a). 


Amiens. 

Bonheur, Rosa... 

Bordeaux. 

Cafe. 

Chateaux. 

Corsica. 

Be Villo. 

Duval. 

Eiffel...... 

Fontainbleau... . 

Garonne. 

Havre. 

Jacques . . . ,, 

LiUe.. 

Loubefc. 

Luxembourg_ 

Marie Antoinette 

Marseilles. 

Mentone. 

Michael. 

Millet. 

Monte Carlo. . . 

Murillo.. 

Nice. 

Nivernais. 

Notre Dame. 

Obelisk. 

Pere la Chaise... 

Pyrenees. 

Quimper. 

Raphael. 

Rheims. 

Rouen. ... 

Hue de Rivoli 
St. Cloud.... . 
St. Germain. . . . 
St, Quentin... . 

Seine. 

Sevres. 

Tuileries. 

Thebes . 

Valenciennes.... 
Versailles. 


am'i-ems 

bo-ner* 

bor-do‘ 

ka-fa' 

. sha-tc T ' 

. kor'si-kfi. 

. da vel 
dii-val' 
ef'fel 

f on-tan bid" 

. ga-ron' 

, a'vr 
. zhak 
.leel 
. loo-ba ; 

. liik-soh-bai 
ma-re' an-twa-nut' 
mar-say'3/ 

. men-to'ne 
mi'kel 
. mi-la' 

, mon-ta-kar'Io 
mu-ril' lo 
nece 

ne-var-na" 
no'tr dAm' 
6b'6-lisk 
par la sha7 ’ 
pir'e-nez 
kfln-par' 
raf'a-el 
remz 
. ro-on' 
re'vo-le 
. sAn kloo 
sdn zhar-rndn' 
sfln kan-tfln' 

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A Little Journey to 
Switzerland. 


Did you ever hear of the “Play Ground of Europe ?” 
But there is one, a very delightful one, and to its 
charming lakes and glorious mountains many thou¬ 
sands of wearied people go every year, for rest and 
recreation. 

This playground is about one-third as large as 
the State of New York. Its name is Switzerland. It 
is one of the smallest and most mountainous countries 
of Europe. Many of its square miles stand on end 
in the form of mountains and glaciers. It boasts 
of the highest ranges of the Alps, some of the peaks 
being almost three miles high. Many of these lofty 
peaks are covered with snow, winter and summer. 

Nearly two-thirds of Switzerland consists of lakes 
and mountains, which leave little room for large 
ranches and farms. The farms are so very small that 
we could almost fold them up and put them in our 
pockets. Only one-ninth of the land is tilled, and 
there is a population of 4,000,000 to be fed. 

Then, again, the Swiss have no sea-coast, which 
hampers their trade across the ocean; their summer 
seasons are short, and crops often fail to ripen as they 
should. Avalanches and storms at times tear down 
almost as fast as the people can build. 

What do the people do? Mountains and glaciers 
are all very well to look at, but they do not yield crops. 



4 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

The Swiss must have great difficulty in earning their 
bread; clearly they have no time to play. Yet the 
Swiss are the most prosperous people of Europe. They 
all make a good living and there are no beggars. 

This is how they manage. They make money by 
entertaining their visitors from other parts of Europe. 
Inn-keeping is one of their leading occupations. 
They make money out of their lakes and mountains 
and glaciers. 

They build splendid hotels in every mountain nook, 
on every shore of their blue lakes, and invite the whole 
world to come and look at their scenery. 

There are over 1400 of these hotels, not counting 
the boarding houses and cafes. 

During the long winter days and evenings many are 
employed in making souvenirs to sell to tourists, and 
in preparing to act as guides for parties wishing to 
climb the mountains during the summer. 

In May the visitors begin to come, and they con¬ 
tinue to come by thousands until October, when 
the cold weather drives them away. The Swiss people 
are glad to see them come, and sorry to have them 
go, for from these visitors they reap a harvest of $20,- 
000,000 every year. 

As the farmers raise barely enough on their small 
farms for their own use, food supplies have to be im¬ 
ported. Austria and Germany send beef. Germany, 
France and Italy send vegetables, and the United 
States sends wheat for bread. 

In exchange for these food products the Swiss send 
the other countries watches, clocks, machinery, carved 
wooden and ivory articles, lace, embroidery, braided 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


5 


straw, chamois skin, cigars, cheese, and condensed 
milk. 

Manufacturing is an important industry. They im¬ 
port raw silk from Italy, raw cotton from the United 
States, and flax and hemp from the low countries of 
Europe, and make silk, cotton and woollen goods to 
sell to the world. They make their mountain streams 
work for them, using the power furnished by their 
swift-flowing waters. Dairying is also a leading oc¬ 
cupation. “Alp” means pasture. On their mountain 
pastures thousands of cows, sheep, and goats feed. 
Swiss cheese and condensed milk sell all over the 
world. 

But the manufactures of Switzerland are not what 
we are most interested in. There is something we are 
far more anxious to see—the Alps—those great snow- 
covered mountains piled high toward the sky. We see 
them even now in our mind’s eye; their precipices, 
their dark abysses, their ice rivers and seas, their 
white peaks shining above the clouds. 

The Alps slope generally east or west from the 
St. Gothard group, which forms the chief water-shed 
of Switzerland. A water-shed is a high point of land 
from which water drains in opposite directions. 

From the St. Gothard, two irregular ranges slope 
westward, one on either side of the River Rhone. 
Their glaciers for the most part drain into the Rhone. 
Monte Blanc, Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn, the Jung¬ 
frau and other well known peaks belong to these 
ranges. 

Eastward from the St. Gothard slope the ranges 
which send their glacier streams into the Rhine. The 


6 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND 



HERDSMAN. 

Alps have many peaks above the line of perpetual 
snow. Mont Blanc, whose top is 15,871 feet above 
sea level, is the highest peak in Europe. y/ 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


7 


These Swiss Alps do a very big business furnishing 
rivers for Europe. Not only the Rhine and Rhone, 
but even the Danube and the Po (through their tribu¬ 
taries) receive water from the glaciers of the Alps. 

The Rhine flows northward, through Lake Con¬ 
stance, and forms part of the northern boundary of 
Switzerland. The Rhone flows westward through the 
Lake of Geneva. It has the widest valley of all Swiss 
rivers, and is surrounded by the highest mountains. 
These rivers and their tributaries have fertile valleys, 
where we shall see lakes, cities, tourist resorts, and the 
little pocket editions of farms. 

LANGUAGE AND RELIGION. 

There is no Swiss language. In the east, middle 
and north of the country, the people speak German. 
Of the twenty-two cantons (or little states), into 
which Switzerland is divided, fifteen are German-speak¬ 
ing, five are French, one is Italian; and in one an 
ancient language called Romansch is the chief tongue 
spoken. These divisions are not exact. In some can¬ 
tons part of the people speak one language, part an¬ 
other. Many Swiss speak two or more languages from 
childhood. There are so many English-speaking trav¬ 
elers that English is taught in the public schools; so 
we have no difficulty in making ourselves understood. 

A little over half the population is Protestant. 
We find Zurich, Basel, Geneva, Berne, and their 
surrounding districts Protestant. The mountain re¬ 
gions are Catholic. People may believe any creed 
they choose, but the government has forbidden the 
founding of new convents. 



8 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

WE ARRIVE AT BASEL. 

Of the many railroads leading into Switzerland from 
Germany and France, by far the greater number lead 
to Basel. It is situated on the River Rhine in the 
northwestern corner of Switzerland. In searching our 
map, we shall have to look at several northwestern 


VIEW OF BASEL 

corners before we find the right one, owing to the 
crooked boundary line. 

Some one has said that Basel controls the gate money 
of Switzerland. That means that most tourists enter 
Switzerland at this point. 

We arrive at this old, old town on a fine summer 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 9 

day. There are no Alps around Basel. The low range 
of the Jura on one side, the hills of the Black Forest 
on the other, are all that the landscape can do for us. 
But the town itself is a quaint old-world city which we 
long to explore. 

The Three Kings is said to be the oldest hostelry 
(hotel) in Europe. Let us go there. It faces the 
Rhine and has a view from the windows which is both 
novel and full of interest. As soon as possible we set 
out to see the sights. It is easy to tell that we are 
in a Swiss, town, for there are numbers of guides with 
mountain dress and Tyrolese hats decorated with green 
sprigs, ready for us. 

We pass parties of tourists starting to or returning 
from the mountains with knapsacks, alpenstocks and 
hob-nailed shoes. 

Through narrow streets, past old houses we go, 
hearing a murmur of German on all sides. The strange 
shops and foreign faces and languages delight us. We go 
to the cathedral terrace to see the landscape around 
the town. Basel seems encircled by vineyards. They 
lie basking in the Sun all along the slopes of the Rhine. 

Resting under the great chestnut trees of the ter¬ 
race, our eyes sweep in a wide circuit over gardens, 
orchards, villas, and cottage-dotted hills. It seems a 
prosperous region. 

Basel is the second largest city in Switzerland, hav¬ 
ing a population of 132,000. Jts railroads, banks, and 
manufactories have made it one of the richest cities 
of its size in the world. Here are made silk ribbons 
and aniline dyes. We must buy some of the ribbons. 
The weaving is done in factories, although hand 


10 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


looms in the homes are still used to some extent. 
Power factories are of recent date in Switzerland. 

As we leave the terrace, we turn to look at the 
cathedral. It adds a fine bit of color to the town, being 
built of red sandstone, with roof of bright colored tiles. 

Its outer walls are decorated with curious figures of 
saints carved in stone and wood. It took more than 
three hundred years to build this cathedral. 

In the old days, when Basel was under Catholic rule, 
the inner walls were splendid with paintings and 
images. Then came the religious wars, called the 
Reformation, and Basel turned Protestant. So did all 
the large Swiss cities. The people tore the images and 
paintings from their cathedrals. In many cases they 
even whitewashed the frescoed walls. This made the 
interiors more Protestant, but much less interesting. 

In this cathedral, built in the fourteenth century, 
a religious council was once held long ago. It must 
have been a rather long council for the people of 
Basel grew tired of it. They turned all their clocks 
ahead one hour, hoping that the churchmen would 
stop debating so much the earlier each day. But the 
council kept on just the same as ever, while the 
people of Basel had to fly around pretty lively to keep 
up with their clocks. 

The houses have picturesque overhanging roofs, 
odd chimneys, and very old and curious gables and 
turrets. Some of these ancient houses have signs and 
mottoes over their high, pointed, arched entrances. 
The mottoes were written in a pious spirit, no doubt, 
but such is not always their effect. Here is one that 
was once over an old inn: 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 11 

“In God I build my hopes of grace, 

The Ancient Pig’s my dwelling-place.” 

The Ancient Pig was the name of the inn. Basel 
has been called the Golden Gate of Switzerland, but 
there must have been a time when it was not so easy 
to enter the town. Three of the great stone gateways 



SWISS INN. 


remain, a part of its ancient fortifications. They hint 
of wars, with terrible assaults by many a foe. 

Hiring a carriage, we drive through the parks, the 
Pfalz (or esplanade); the Zoological Garden, the only 
one in Switzerland; and to the University buildings 
and numerous scientific schools. The University is one 
of Switzerland’s six famous Universities. The others 
are at Zurich, Geneva, Berne, Lausanne, and Fribourg. 

We ride over the macadamized roads about the city 
and see the pretty villas peeping from masses of foliage. 







12 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


These villas are the homes of the wealthy people of 
Basel. 

CHALETS. 

We see picturesque little cottages, or chalets, that 
look like little toy houses. They have broad, low roofs, 
and wide overhanging galleries along the sides and front 
of the upper story. Built of unpainted pine, they rest 
upon a stone basement from eight to ten feet high. 
The sun tans these pine houses to a rich brown, thus 
making a tasteful background for the wisteria and 
honeysuckle vines which trail over them. Shelves of 
blooming plants are under the windows, and beehives 
of coiled straw over the doors. 

Rustic gardens full of carnations, asters, roses and 
lilacs border the tiny grass plots. A pile of winter 
fuel is stacked under the projecting eaves. And near 
neighbor to the house is the manure heap. Neatness 
reigns inside and out of some of the chalets. Others 
are sadly untidy—but all are picturesque. Both cattle 
and family are housed under the same roof even in 
very good houses. The stables open upon the kitchen 
quite as if cows, sheep, and goats were members of the 
family. 

FROM THE TRAIN WINDOWS. 

Leaving Basel we start for Geneva. The ride promises 
to be a pleasant one, for the railway carriages are so 
constructed that we can roam about and sit wherever 
we like. If we get tired of being inside, we can climb 
up by steps to the roof, and enjoy a fine view from a 
lofty seat. 

Our train skirts the Jura Mountains, now passing 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 13 

through tunnels, now winding along narrow ledges 
above swift streams. Lakes gleam in the valleys. 
Vine-wreathed chalets nestle near the roadside. 
Castles rise above the trees on the hillside. 

As the train follows the highway we have stray 
glimpses of the people. A milk cart is trundled toward 
the village, drawn by a dog and a little boy. Men are 



sharpening their sickles in the meadows, or are carrying 
produce to market in long baskets strapped to their 
backs. Nearly all are smoking queer, hooked pipes. 
Women are busy in the fields, raking, hoeing, or carrying 
hay in bundles on their backs. A boy with a flock of 
goats is ascending the hill toward a castled summit 


14 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


A little girl sits on a doorstep knitting. We see no one 
idling. 

At the stations along the way Swiss girls come to 
tempt us with cool drinks, fruit and other articles of 
food. The Alpine strawberries are delicious, and we 
all wish to try the Swiss cheese for which the country 
is celebrated. 

This Gruyere cheese is made of goat’s milk and is 
full of holes. We do not enjoy it so much as the 
Swiss people do, however. 

Our train stops at a town, drawing up before a pretty 
station house built like a chalet, with flowers growing 
on shelves under the windows. An official in uniform 
steps forward to start the train in the oddest way. 
He solemnly toots a little to}^ horn and away we go, 
to our amazement. We never fail to watch for the 
horn “tooter” after this. Sometimes it is a woman who 
gives the blast. 

Our next stop is Bienne, a town on the border 
between German- and French-speaking districts. It 
is noted for its watchmaking industry. We ask about 
the steep car line which leads up the mountain to a 
watering-place above the town. Someone says it is 
a “funicular,” or cable car line. An iron lever on the 
car grips a moving cable running between the rails 
and thus the car is drawn upward. Our guide books 
mention the museum in Bienne, which has a fine col¬ 
lection of lake-dwelling remains. This is a fine time 
to learn what lake-dwelling remains may be. 

THE LAKE DWELLERS. 

Nothing was known of the race of people called Lake- 
dwellers until about seventy years ago. Then some Swiss 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 15 

peasants while digging gardens stumbled upon the 
long-buried remains of these people. The Swiss lakes 
happened to be very low at that time—so low that 
the peasants were making gardens in the exposed bed 
of the Lake of Zurich, when they suddenly unearthed 
a collection of stone ornaments, household utensils, 
and weapons. They showed these relics to a scientist 
at Zurich, who was at once much interested. He set 
scientists to work searching all the lake shores of 
Swit zerland, and thus many more remains were brought 
to light. 

The people who used these weapons and utensils 
must have lived away back in the early dawn of the 
world’s history. Yet, in all the following ages, the rest 
of the world had known nothing of their existence. 
They are called the Lake-dwellers, because the relics 
were found in the lake beds. We shall find collections 
of Lake-dwelling remains in many of the Swiss mu¬ 
seums. 

Some one asks about the beginning of the Swiss 
Republic. How came the Swiss by a free government 
without the sign of a king or queen, when all Europe 
is full of royalty? 

THE THREE FOREST CANTONS. 

Hundreds and hundreds of years after the Lake- 
dwellers had disappeared, the Romans took possession 
of Helvetia (as Switzerland was then called). They 
built towns, roads and fortifications. Then they gave 
way to northern tribes, ancestors of the German 
and the French races. 

That part of the country settled by Germans was 


16 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

considered under the German Emperor. The French 
cantons (or states) had a variety of rulers. ^ Being 
shut in by mountains, the people of the German 
cantons were left a good deal to themselves. So they 
learned to manage their own affairs and came to love 
freedom. 

Three cantons in particular, lying on the border of 
Lake Lucerne, clung to their right to govern themselves. 
They were Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, the “three 
forest cantons.” The men of these cantons were sturdy 
fighters. When different dukes tried to take away 
their rights, they formed a league. It was called the 
League of the Three Forest Cantons. Swiss school 
children know that the written compact between the 
members of this league is dated August 1, A. D. 1291. 
That is the birthday of the Swiss Republic. Its six- 
hundredth anniversary was celebrated in 1891 by the 
Swiss people. 

Albert I., King of Germany and Duke of Austria, 
determined to conquer these free mountaineers. He 
sent Austrian governors to force them to submission. 
The governors were insolent rulers and so tyrannical 
that the people bore with them but a short time. 
Three leaders, one man from each of the forest cantons, 
met at Rutli to plan rebellion. In a meadow beside 
Lake Lucerne they joined hands and “swore, under the 
open canopy of heaven, to live and die in defense of 
freedom and country.” Each man found ten others 
from his canton who were willing to take the oath. 
Then they stirred the cantons to revolt. 

The story of William Tell belongs to this time. We 
shall talk of him later. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 17 

Albert I. marched against the revolted cantons, but 
was assassinated on the way. His son, Leopold, led 
the troops forward. In November, 1315, the Swiss 



A VILLAGE STREET. 


defeated the Austrians under Leopold in a terrible 
battle in the Pass of Morgarten. 

After that a number of towns and cantons joined 










18 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

the league of the three forest cantons, and the con¬ 
federacy came to be called Switzerland, from the name 
of the canton of Schwyz. 

ARNOLD VON WINKELRIED. 

The Swiss love their heroes. They tell a story about 
one named Arnold von Winkelried. Twenty years 
after the battle of Morgarten, another Duke Leopold 
tried to conquer the Swiss. He led several thousand 
of the best Austrian troops into Switzerland. 

On the heights of Sempach, to meet them, were 
stationed only 1,400 Swiss soldiers. The Austrian 
nobles, dismounting, began to surround the little. Swiss 
army. They were just ready to close in, when Arnold 
von Winkelried, a knight of Unterwalden, resolved 
to save his country by losing his own life. 

“Dear brothers,” he cried, “I will make a way for 
you; take care of my wife and children.” Then 
rushing into the midst of the enemy, he cried, “Make 
way for liberty.” 

He fell pierced by countless lances. But his brave 
dash into the Austrian ranks did make a path for the 
Swiss. They flung themselves upon the enemy, put 
them to flight, and saved their little land again fo? 
freedom. Every July the Swiss still meet at Sempach 
to celebrate this victory. 

In time the Swiss soldiers became famous as fighters. 

Their confederacy was a part of the German Empire, 
though ruling itself, until 1648. Then its independence 
was acknowledged. The little republic has had many 
ups and downs since then, but never has it wholly lose 
its freedom. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


19 


NEUCHATEL. 

We are passing through Neuchatel, a little city full 
of charm. It rises from the shore of Lake Neuchatel 
by a gradual ascent to the castle on the hill. We look 
from the car windows and behold the Alps in the 
blue haze of the distance. They make a ragged line 
against the sky, where peak on peak may be dimly 
seen. 

Neuchatel is an educational center. In its academy, 
Agassiz, the noted Swiss scientist, was a teacher. We 
like to call Agassiz a fellow-countryman, because he 
spent all the latter part of his life in America. He 
was Professor of Natural Science in Harvard Univer¬ 
sity, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, but was born in 
Switzerland, and educated in Swiss and German 
universities. He made a study of fish, birds, and 
other animal life, and learned much that was new 
about glaciers. Ten years he spent in the study of 
glaciers, part of the time living in a hut built on the 
Aar Glacier. We shall see that glacier by and by. 
The Neuchatel museum has copies 'of all his books, 
and contains his best scientific collection. 

In Neuchatel and the neighboring towns are many 
manual training and industrial schools, where one may 
learn to be a teacher, a watchmaker, a vinegrower, 
a farmer, or whatever his fancy may prompt, 
EDUCATION. 

Swiss schools rank high among those of all Euro¬ 
pean nations. Education is compulsory. Excellent 
primary and secondary schools are provided for every 
district, and the school building is often the best build- 


20 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


ing in the village. Teachers are well trained, as each 
canton has a Normal School for that purpose. Besides 
the six famous universities, there are numerous 
academies, boarding schools, manual training and 
industrial schools. 

The land is full of schools which teach the young 
people trades and useful occupations; so Swiss work¬ 
men are everywhere in demand. Swiss boys go to 
foreign lands to work as engineers, chemists, dairymen, 
carpenters, masons, and in endless other ways. Swiss 
girls leave home and land to go as teachers, 
governesses, milliners, pastry cooks, and trie like. 
When they earn a competence, back they come to their 
mountain homes. 

Switzerland was the first country to open manual 
training schools. Gymnastics, hygiene (the care of 
the health), and singing are important subjects of 
school work, besides arithmetic, grammar, and the 
other common branches. 

Lunch rooms for children who have far to go, bath 
rooms, and medical attendance are provided in many 
Swiss schools. Children have their nature lessons 
during outdoor excursions with their teachers. Al¬ 
penstocks in hand, they climb mountains in search of 
both health and knowledge. 

Most Swiss children know their mother tongue and 
another language learned either at school or from friends. 
It is a common custom for Swiss families to exchange 
children so that they may learn another language. A 
German family sends one or two children to live for 
a winter with a French or Italian family, receiving an 
equal number of French or Italian children in return. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 21 

From the age of eight years, schoolboys are in¬ 
structed in the use of firearms. This is because 
Switzerland has no standing army, but requires each 
citizen to serve as a soldier for a certain period. Each 
year the government holds military examinations and 
reviews which all schoolboys must pass. 

Swiss children enjoy their school life. Ever since 
the days of Pestalozzi, a wise and kind teacher, they 
have had no fear of whippings and harsh treatment. 
Pestalozzi lived in Zurich and taught poor children, 
without pay, because he loved them and found that 
he could help them to grow wise and good. He him¬ 
self was very poor, but shared his little with the 
orphans whom he gathered about him. 

His best known school was in Yverdon, a town near 
Neuchatel. There he taught for twenty years, and 
was often visited by famous men and women who 
were interested in his methods of education. Children 
taught by Pestalozzi loved to gain knowledge. They 
never wearied of his lessons. The books which he 
wrote about teaching are read all over the civilized 
world. There is a monument to him in Yverdon. 

Another teacher in Pestalozzi’s school at Yverdon, 
who afterward won fame, was Froebel: He was a 
young German, gifted with a wonderful knowledge of 
child nature. He, too, was poor and had a hard struggle 
to earn a living, but discovered that he knew how to 
teach and so worked away, money or no money. He 
spent two years with Pestalozzi; opened a school near 
Lucerne; then another for training teachers at Burgdorf, 
near Berne; and finally returned to Germany, where 
he died in 1852. 


22 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


He was the founder of the kindergarten. His great 
book, “The Education of Man/’ gives his ideas on edu¬ 
cation. Kindergarten teachers regard it as the highest 
authority in their work. 

LAUSANNE. 

We travel southwest. Our train enters a tunnel. 
Emerging from its darkness we come into the sun¬ 
shine of the shore of Lake Leman—the Lake of Geneva. 
This city mounting the sides of Mont Jurat is Lau¬ 
sanne. Here we stop for a day or two. 

Porters in blue blouses and red caps take our luggage 
to the hotel on their backs. They carry the heaviest 

trunks in this fashion, 
often for long distances. 
Eager to mingle with 
the life of the streets, 
we at once go sight¬ 
seeing. We take a cable 
car ride to the harbor 
village of Ouchy to see 
the lovely lake. Com¬ 
ing back to the city, 
we find ourselves 
among the booths of 
the market. 

The middle of several 
steep, crooked streets 
is filled with little cov¬ 
ered stalls, where ve¬ 
getables, fruits, flow¬ 
ers, baked goods, cheese 
and butter are heaped 




A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


23 


pell-mell, and buying and selling are going on at a 
tremendous rate. A busy crowd throngs the place. 
People are talking French so fast that we feel tongue- 
tied with our little stock of phrases. 

Let us buy some late cherries of this peasant girl. 
She looks pretty in her picturesque costume of colored 
skirt, velvet bodice, and big hat. Swiss girls are 
seldom pretty—even those of the wealthy class. Lau¬ 
sanne girls are said to be the fairest of all. 

Everybod}^ is carrying produce to market or pur¬ 
chases from it, in a long, flat basket, called a hotte. It 
is strapped to the back, and reaches from neck to 
knees. 

Street sprinklers wander about trying to lay the 
dust. Long water cans on their backs have a rubber 
hose attached, which the sprinkler carries in his hand, 
throwing water in a tiny spray. 

College men loiter among the stalls. They wear the 
little colored caps of the University and smoke long 
pipes continually. They are jolly young fellows and 
make the town gay with their frolics and songs. 
Students come to study at Lausanne from all Europe 
and America—Russians, French, Dutch, Germans, 
English. The sons of King Edward of England were 
educated here. 

We pass by the Hotel de Ville, or town hall, a very 
* ancient building and curious in appearance; also the 
Anchor Inn, where Lord Byron, the English poet, lived 
while writing his well-known poem, “The Prisoner of 
Chillon.” We shall learn more of the “Prisoner” when 
we visit the castle of Chillon. 

Climbing a long line of wooden steps we come to 


24 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND 



PEASANT GIRL IN COSTUME OF YAUDOISE CANTON 









A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


25 


the cathedral, said to be the most beautiful in Switzer¬ 
land. We pause to admire its rose window, thirty 
feet in diameter, made of stained glass of marvelous 
colors. Ascending higher, we reach the Signal above 
the town, a point from which we see vineyards stretch¬ 
ing along the lake shore as far as eye can reach. 

The canton of Vaud, of which Lausanne is capital, 
stands second among the grape-producing cantons of 
Switzerland. Ticino, south of the Alps, is first, having 
thirty-two square miles of vineyards. Grapes are 
grown in all but three cantons of Switzerland—Schwyz, 
Unterwalden, and Appenzell. 

VINEYARDS OF VAUD. 

Some of the vineyards in Vaud are eight hundred 
years old. Of late years new stocks have been widely 
introduced. French vineyards are so near that the 
Swiss must work hard to compete with French grape- 
growers. 

The vines are trained to short, upright poles, and 
are kept close-trimmed in order that the clusters may 
receive more nourishment. Water is brought to the 
vines through troughs which lead up the mountains 
to glacier streams. The work of making and repairing 
these troughs is difficult, sometimes even causing loss 
of life, because of the dangerous places over which 
the troughs must be carried. 

Each commune (or county, as we should say) fixes 
the day on which the gathering of grapes must begin. 
It is usually about the middle of October. Men, 
women and children join in the labor. Poor families 
from mountain villages come*, bag and baggage, to live 


26 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


near the vineyards while helping to harvest the grapes. 
It seems almost impossible to us that anyone can 
work on some of these slopes. Often they are as steep 
as a roof. 

The clusters are cut with sharp knives, crushed and 
carried to the wine presses in tubs. Old-fashioned wine 
presses are in use. Swiss peasants do not easily adopt 
new ways of doing things. 

An odd custom once existed in these vineyards. 
Boys who stole grapes were shot in the legs—not with 
powder, but with salt. How that must have stung! 
What they do with grape thieves now we do not learn, 
for we are afraid even to point at a cluster, much 
less to steal one. 

GENEVA. 

From Lausanne we speed southwest toward Geneva. 
We are watching for our first view of Mont Blanc, the 
King of Alpine peaks. It has been in our minds ever 
since we left home. 

Onward through the sweet, sunny land we fly, with 
many a vision of far-off peaks. Suddenly, there is a 
shout, “Mont Blanc! Mont Blanc!” We crowd about 
the windows. There in the distance towers the snow- 
crowned monarch—a mighty mass lifting its peak 
toward heaven. The boys of our party wave their 
caps with a cheer. 

As the sun drops behind the Jura mountains; our 
train pulls into Geneva. A little French and some 
money settle matters with the red-capped porters. 
They will carry our luggage to the hotel. A cab will 
carry us. 

We roll along wide streets, over superb bridges 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


27 


which span the Rhone River, past massive buildings, and 
through open squares adorned with statues. What a 
gay city, we say, our heads bobbing this way and that 
in our efforts to see everything at once. Geneva is 
called the Paris of Switzerland. 



CHAMOUNI AND MONT BLANC. 


Our hotel faces the granite quays along the lake. 
It is a large, cream-colored building. The quays are 
bordered by a row of hotels colored this same yellow¬ 
ish white. The windows of our rooms look directlv upon 






28 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

the water. Almost beneath them, the river Rhone 
issues from the lake with a current swift and powerful. 

.We dress with care for dinner, for there is much 
display of fine toilettes in the Geneva hotels of an 
evening. A chatter of French greets us in the dining¬ 
room. The waiters, however, speak to us in English. 


GENEVA. 

They seem to know many languages. In this country 
of three races it is easy to learn foreign tongues. Pure 
French is spoken in Geneva. For that reason, we shall 
find many American and English people living here 
to learn the language. It is cheaper than to live in 
Paris. 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND 


29 


We go to the opera house to hear the music. This 
takes us through the brilliantly-lighted streets. Geneva 
uses the power of the Rhone current to make its 
electric lights—just as the city of Buffalo uses the 
power of Niagara Falls to make its electric lights. 

The streets are thronged with people from all Europe. 
String bands play before the cafes. Music sounds from 
the parks, the shops, the open windows of stately 
houses. Everything wears a holiday air. 

Next morning'we slip out to a stone pier in the 
harbor. It commands a view of the lake and town. 
How pure the atmosphere! How crystal clear the 
water of the lake! People say that this smiling lake 
sometimes misbehaves, tossing about in anger. We 
cannot believe it. The English poet, Byron, called it 
''beautiful as a dream.” The water is wonderfully 
transparent and objects can be seen at a depth of over 
eighty feet. Owing to this depth it never freezes over. 
Geneva is the largest lake in Switzerland, having an 
area of eighty-four square miles. 

To us the white peak beyond the lake is also beauti¬ 
ful. Mont Blanc is forty miles from Geneva. Although 
it is really in Italy, the Swiss claim it as part of their 
scenery because it is best seen from the Swiss side. 

We turn our eyes toward the town. The lake shore 
is in the form of a crescent, with a park along its inner 
circle—the Jardin Anglais. On either side the park, 
hotels and pensions front the lake. Their brilliant 
cream color makes a fine contrast with the blue of sky 
and water. Beyond park and hotels, the city rises 
in a pile around the cathedral. Far in the west the 
hills make a dark line against the sky. 



30 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

On the lake steamboats with sweet-toned bells ring¬ 
ing in their bows cut the blue water. They leave a 
trail of white foam behind them. Heavy barges loaded 
with stone drift past. Their curious lateen-sails make 
us think of old fashioned windmills. 

Looking down the river we see a vista of bridges. 


WASHERWOMEN OF GENEVA. 

The Rhone divides the city into two sections. We 
stroll along its banks and come upon some queer¬ 
looking houses floating on the water. They belong 
to the Genevese washerwomen. Already the owners 
are at, work with their soiled linen spread on boards 







A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 31 

in front of them. They are soaping, pounding, and 
gossiping in great comfort. We have many times 
seen people washing in rivers since we came to Europe. 
It seems odd to us, but why not? It saves carrying 
water and emptying tubs. 

We climb steep old streets to the ancient quarter of 
the town. We are going to the cathedral of St. Peter. 
This building is we know not how old, and parts of 
two older churches have been discovered beneath 
it. Here preached John Calvin, the great Protestant 
divine. Calvin was a French Catholic priest who in 
earty manhood left his church to become a Protestant 
preacher. He was invited to Geneva, which was then 
a strict Protestant city. During the Reformation it 
was called the “Protestant Rome.” Calvin’s name is 
closely associated with the history of Geneva. He was 
one of its greatest citizens. We sit in Calvin’s chair, 
which has a place of honor in front of the pulpit. 
Sundays there is wonderful music in this old church— 
solemn chants and chorals which echo back from the 
vaulted ceiling, while the great organ plays with 
power. We shall hear about all this later. 

Leaving the cathedral we wander about ancient little 
streets with terrible names. The Street of Purgatory 
is one. The houses are hundreds of years old. They 
look dark and evil, to match the names of the streets. 

On the hill we pass fine old mansions. They are the 
homes of Geneva’s aristocracy. The dwellings date 
back to a remote past when the town was passing 
through stirring scenes. Geneva has been the home of 
many distinguished people, the battleground of many 
bloody struggles. 


32 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


Last of all we make the rounds of the shops. Geneva 
has a population of 155,000. It is the third largest 
city in Switzerland. The people are a busy folk. They 
make watches and clocks, jewelry, music boxes and 
electrical appliances. In some respects there are no 
finer shops in all Europe than in Geneva. 

The music boxes attract us. They are made in every 
manner of form and size, and are worked like clocks 
to play tunes. We admire a great orchestrion which 
sounds* like a pipe organ. Then we listen in astonish¬ 
ment to a tune played by a match box. A little wooden 
bird trills at us from its cage. We pick up a hand 
mirror, which immediately begins to jingle the strains 
of a Sunday-school song. We admire an album, and 
the shop-keeper sets it to playing an air from an opera. 
Clocks, snuff-boxes, foot-stools—all play airs, to our 
amazement. 

We say, “Well, let us sit down and get used to these 
surprises.” Straightway, the chair under us begins 
to play “America.” The workmanship on these boxes 
is of the finest. We buy a number of them and go tink¬ 
ling and jingling down the street to look at the watches. 

Geneva has made watches for over two hundred 
years. They are beautiful in design. We buy one as 
a souvenir, although Americans and English no longer 
need buy Swiss watches. Our own factories supply 
us. 

The canton of Neuchatel is the real center of Swiss 
watchmaking. Nearly every village in the canton is 
engaged in this industry. Some of the work is done 
in factories; more is done in the worked homes. 
Often the peasants of this and neighboring cantons 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 33 

turn to watch-and clock-making as an evening employ¬ 
ment. Thus they add to the slender incomes from 
their farms. 

Geneva is proud of its schools. The University 
draws students from Europe and America. More stu¬ 
dents attend it than at any other Swiss university. It 
was founded by John Calvin. Women as well as men 
are admitted to its courses of study. The Conservatory 
of Music has an international reputation. 

The Swiss Housekeeping School for Girls proves a 
delightful place to visit. It was founded by the Govern¬ 
ment, and its tuition is free. Its object is to teach 
young girls housework and habits of order and econ¬ 
omy. The girls learn, as well, French, German, com¬ 
mercial geography, accounts, and the laws of health, 
or hygiene. The housekeeping lessons occupy a little 
more than half their time. 

In the school kitchen we find about two dozen girls 
getting luncheon. It is a large, conveniently arranged 
room. Two ranges, long tables, plenty of utensils 
hung within easy reach, make work seem like play. 

The girls, in immaculate aprons, with sleeves tucked 
up, fly about happy as larks. One hands us their 
luncheon menu. It is printed in French. They are 
to have omelette, creamed potatoes, a wonderful salad, 
rolls, and another dish. We cannot translate its name. 

The bright little cooking-teacher shows us the refriger¬ 
ator, storeroom, and dining-room. Everything is 
spotlessly clean. The girls are taught marketing, she 
says. They learn to buy so that there will be no waste. 
This luncheon will cost but five cents apiece. 

The class in ironing takes our fancy. Muslin gar- 


34 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


merits are being smoothed so deftly and daintil} that 
the girls in our party want to join the class. Such 
beautiful work does make ironing seem a most fascinat¬ 
ing occupation. 

Here is a class in cutting. The girls are learning 
to cut a sleeve. Another group is learning to darn. 
Mending, cleaning, making beds, sweeping—the girls 
learn to do all in the very best way. It is a delightful 
school. 

Geneva has several museums. Its library was 
founded hundreds of years ago by Bonivard, a patriot 
and reformer. We shall learn more of him later on. 

Sunday is a gay holiday in Geneva—Geneva, with 
its strict Calvinistic bringing-up! We go to morning 
service at the cathedral. Crowds of people attend to 
hear the music. Services are held also in the English 
and the American churches. The Young Men’s Christian 
Association has a religious meeting, and a Salvation 
Army band sings at street corners. This seems like 
home. But the throngs are out for a good time. 

People crowd parks, cafes, steamboats, and Kursaal. 
The Kursaal is a garden, music-hall and restaurant 
combined. People sit at tables under trees, eating, 
drinking, and listening to music. The waitresses flv 
about rapidly. 

In the evening the orchestra plays in the Jardin An¬ 
glais. We sit under the trees and think surely here is 
Fairy Land. On the lake every manner of little boat 
and craft is afloat. Chinese lanterns, like fireflys, 
gleam all over them. The fountain in the lake begins 
to play. Its spray is forced upward over two hundred 
feet by the power of the Rhone current. Electric lights 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


35 


throw ever-changing colors upon its leaping waters. 
The lake reflects thousands of lights. 

THE SHORES OF LAKE GENEVA. 

We take the steamboat at Geneva and circle around 
the lake past Lausanne to the towns and resorts along 
the eastern shore. A band on board plays, while we 
sit under the deck awning and enjoy the scenes pass¬ 
ing before us. 

Railroads, carriage roads, electric car lines, and foot¬ 
paths connect the villages on this eastern shore. It is 
a tourist-haunted region. There stretch the terraced 
vineyards of Vaud*, acres on acres of them. Here 
masses of foliage bank the hills where chalets, villas, 
and castles rise. Villages straggle along the shore in 
irregular lines. We see sailboats making for them, 
their queer-shaped canvases spread wide. They are 
carrying cabbages, potatoes, cauliflower, chestnuts, 
bundles of hay, and wild mountain fruits to the mar¬ 
kets. 

At a convenient point we land and take to the foot¬ 
path which leads under shady trees, through cool, green 
nooks, to the Castle of Chillon. 

THE CASTLE OF CHILLON. 

The castle stands by the water side, where its square 
towers with narrow slits of windows show above the 
tree tops. We think of the thousands of prisoners who 
have perished within those walls as we cross the 
bridge to its entrance. 

Chillon has a long history. Its history dates back to 
the Roman occupation, or beyond it, for a prison 
seems always to have stood on this spot. 



36 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

The most widely-known prisoner of Chillon was Boni- 
vard, the founder of the library in Geneva. It was of 
him that Lord Byron wrote while living at the Anchor 
Inn of Lausanne. 

Bonivard was a Genevese gentleman of high birth— 
a Protestant and patriot, when his native city was 


CASTLE OF CHILLON, 

trying to free itself from Catholic rule. He fought 
boldly against the enemies of Geneva and was thrown 
into the Castle of Chillon. There he was confined for 
six weary years. The last four years he was imprisoned 
in an underground vault lower than the lake. He 










A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


37 


was fastened to a stone pillar by an iron chain four feet 
long, so that he could walk only within a narrow circle. 
He made no outcry, but paced to and fro over the stone 
floor, until he wore a little path in it. We see the path' 
and on the pillar the names of Lord Byron and of 
several other distinguished people who have visited 
the vault. 

At last Bonivard was set free by the people of Berne 
and of Geneva. Together they stormed the castle, 
both by land and sea, took it, and rushing into the 
prisoner’s vault broke his chain, shouting joyfully that 
he was free—he, and Geneva too, for the long strug¬ 
gle had been won. 

The castle has five subterranean (meaning under¬ 
ground) vaults. Above we enter the Hall of Justice 
and the Chamber of Tortures, where prisoners were 
put to the rack. We see the pits, now filled, which 
led down to the lake and through which prisoners 
were hurled into the water. The castle is no longer a 
prison. Its only occupants now are the guards who 
show the place to visitors. 


FESTIVAL OF THE VINTAGE. 

Near Chillon is the town of Vevay. It is the grape- 
culture center of the canton of Vaud. Every fifteen 
years or more a beautiful festival is held at Vevay, 
which attracts visitors from all the world. It ranks 
with the great German "Passion Play,” although it is 
not a religious festival as is the Passion Play. 

How we regret that we cannot see the Festival of 


38 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


the Vintage! The performance consists of fancy 
dances, chorus singing, processions, and panto¬ 
mimes. Only the people of Vevay take part in the 
programme, being trained for months beforehand. 
Appropriate costumes and the best of music are pro¬ 
vided. 

An immense open-air amphitheater was built for the 
festival of 1889 . On three sides of it rows of seats rose 
one above the other, making room for visitors. An 
arched entrance for the performers occupied the fourth 
side, with the mountains far beyond Vevay forming a 
natural background. Of the thousands of visitors who 
came, many were turned away for lack of room. Seats 
sold at fabulous prices. 

The festival opens with a magnificent procession. A 
boom of cannon followed by band music announces its 
coming to the audience. First appears a body of Swiss 
troops in national costume, carrying ancient weapons. 
Following them is a guild of wine-growers, with their 
leader ahead holding a cross on high. The members 
of the guild are in the uniforms of their order. 

Then, amid loud cheers from the audience, “ Spring 
and her Train” enter. Spring is represented by little 
children dressed as fairies, bearing garlands of flowers 
and dancing. Spring’s train is a long line of shepherds 
and shepherdesses leading goats, mowers with scythes, 
gardeners with flowers, and herdsmen and dairy-maids 
leading dappled cows. All are in gay costume, and 
perform in imitation of their real duties. 

Summer and her train follow. Haymakers, gleaners 
and threshers, with forks, sheaves and flails, go through 
the motions of raking, gleaning and threshing. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


39 


Autumn’s train is the important feature of the pro¬ 
cession, being the vintagers themselves. They dance * 
around Bacchus (the god of wine), who rides in a gor¬ 
geous chariot. The gathering of grapes and the working 
of wine presses is all done in pantomime. 

The effect of the rhythmic movements, music, colors 
of costumes and flowers is dazzling. At the last, all 
join in singing the herdsman’s song and other national 
airs. Each festival differs from the others, but the 
programme always has the processions of the seasons 
in some form. 

AN ALPINE POST RIDE. 

We go to Chamounix, a village noted for its position 
opposite Monte Blanc. It is in a high valley, encircled 
by mountains, where glaciers and snowy peaks add 
grandeur to the view. A railroad goes from Geneva 
to Chamounix, but we take the diligence, or post, from 
the Rhone valley, arranging to take the last stage of the 
journey on mules. This will enable us to see the 
mountains. 

The post is a huge coach, drawn by four horses. It 
carries both mail and passengers. The old-fashioned 
coaches are yellow. They have seats inside and high at 
the back for passengers, and one up in front, where the 
postilion sits. We start in the early morning, with a 
clatter of hoofs and cracking of whips delightful to 
hear. A little procession of omnibuses and carriages 
follows us, containing tourists who were too late to get 
seats in the post. 

We go bowling over the smooth road at a great pace, 
overtaking all manner of vehicles. Here go a party of 
tourists on mules. They travel slowly because these 


40 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 



mountain mules do as they choose, caring nothing for 
prods of the whip. Bicycle riders fly past, with knap¬ 
sacks strapped to their handle bars. An automobile 
overtakes us, filled with merrymakers who are tooting 
horns and trying to yodel like herdsmen. The yodel 
is a cry used by Swiss herdsmen to call their cattle. 

Alas! we cannot see the Alps. The morning is too 
misty. That is the way the weather treats mountain 


THE DILIGENCE. 

sightseers sometimes. It just pulls a mist veil over 
the mountains heads, and, for all we can see, there is 
nothing but level land all around. 

We dash into villages with a fine flourish, bringing up 
in their squares to leave the mail. The postmistress 
lushes out. the girls at the fountain stare, and a little 
boy comes leading a goat in great haste. 










A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


41 


Will we have a drink of milk? he asks. 

He milks the goat for us, a cupful at a time, and 
we drink the liquid—not because we like it, but 
because we want to try everything. A fellow-passenger 
tells us that she has been staying at a “milk cure” in 
the mountains. 

SWISS “CURES.” 

Invalids go to “milk cures” to drink goats' milk 
as a cure for many diseases. They train themselves to 
drink several pints of fresh, warm milk daily. 

Another passenger speaks of the “grape cure” near 
Yevay. Invalids at this cure eat all the grapes they 
can swallow, between certain hours of each day. 
They think such treatment is good for consumption, 
rheumatism and the like. She tells us that there is 
another Swiss “cure” still more remarkable. 

It is the hot baths at Leuk, where sick folk sit in 
tanks of hot water which is up to their necks, eight or 
nine hours daily. Dozens of them sit in the same 
tank, talking, playing games on little floating tables, 
or reading. It is a funny sight, she says, to see only 
heads grouped around the floating tables. 

VILLAGES. 

Variety is the spice of Swiss life. No two cantons 
are alike, and no two villages. The differences of 
language, race, religion, and costume, make each little 
community like nothing but itself. 

We pass through a charming village. It looks as 
if ready for a photographer's snap shot, so flowery and 
smiling are its chalets. As Ti all towns, a fountain 
has the place of honor in the middle of the square. 


42 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 



Leading from the square, cobble-stone streets zig-zag 
among the houses. A church, a school house, a “ drink 
hall” and a court house with an old clock tower are 
the more prominent buildings. 

The dwellings have the usual whitewashed base¬ 
ments and broad, low roofs, the shingles of which are 


AN ALPINE VILLAGE. 

held on by stones. Terrific winds blow down the 
mountains at times. So the stones are necessary. 
The houses are from one to three stories high, each 
story generally sheltering a different family. The best 
houses have the name of the builder, the date when 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


43 


built, and a motto or scripture text burned into the 
wood over the door. Some have painted wooden 
shutters over the windows, some have their stairways 
outside, and some are quite fine with tile roofs and 
carved wood decorations. 

The bedding seems forever airing on the balconies 
or in the front windows. We should want to air the 
whole interior ourselves, if we had the stables built 
under our own roofs (as they do) and a manure heap 
at hand. Every house has this manure heap. The 
manure is gathered from stables and road—a fact 
which explains the clean roads. We pass women and 
children, with baskets, gathering it from the highway. 
They pile the heaps in layers, with straw between, and 
braid the edges of the straw—perhaps to make it look 
handsome! 

But the flower gardens atone for the manure heaps. 
Seldom may one see such roses, violets, geraniums 
and asters as grow in pots on the balconies, on shelves 
under the windows, or in plots by the roadside. We 
see few of the picturesque costumes of which we have 
heard and read. The women folk wear blue home- 
spun, the men blue working blouses and loose trousers. 
We search the faces of the girls at the fountains, where 
they are cleaning vegetables. Not one pretty face do 
we see. But they are intelligent faces—bright and 
wholesome. The fountain is the social center of the 
village. The family washing is done here, about three 
or four times a year. That means that the Swiss 
housewife has a bountiful supply of linen. To wash 
every week looks as if one had but few clothes, they say. 

There is always someone in the square ready to sell 


44 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


us things while the post horses are being watered. 
They offer us tiny baskets of mountain fruit, nuts, 
flowers, mountain minerals, carved wooden toys in the 
form of little chalets which, when opened, prove to be 
needle-boxes, picture postal cards, and photographs 
of the scenery. One little girl offers us a bunch of 
edelweiss. 

This velvety white flower is much in demand with 
travelers, because it is so hard to find. It grows in very 
high altitudes, amid the snow, and usually on some 
crag or brink of a precipice. The blossom is a close 
cluster of flower heads within a circle of leaves. It is 
somewhat like our own “ everlasting. ” All other Alpine 
flowers are exceedingly brilliant in color. The edel¬ 
weiss alone is white. 

So far, we have missed the fine scenery. It is now 
time to leave the post and mount our mules. Suddenly 
—in an instant, it seems—the clouds lift. There are the 
mountains! We look at their great masses, rising 
height on height, and say no word, feeling very small 
and worthless in the presence of works so great. 

OVER THE MOUNTAINS. 

We start up the mountain, clinging to our mules, 
with faith in their skill as climbers. Soon we are in the 
midst of scenes of terrible grandeur. Peaks white with 
the snow of ages shine above banks of white cloud. 
We ride toward them along a narrow path where 
precipices rise sheer on one side and chasms yawn on 
the other. Mountain torrents plunge down the 
ravines, leaping over stones with a roar. Granite rocks 
overhang the way, looking as if they would fall upon us. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 45 


I lie road leads around sharp turns which take our 
breath by their suddenness. We look ahead and see it 
entering a tunnel cut in the rocks, or winding above us 
in places we are positive we cannot reach. 

These great and awful mountains make us tremble, 
but the guide smiles at our fears. The danger is 

nothing to him; 
neither is it any¬ 
thing to our mules. 
We hired the 
mules, hoping to 
get into dangerous 
places. Being in 
the mountains, 
danger is what we 
looked for; but we 
were not expect¬ 
ing to feel quite 
so dizzy. Our 
mules step out 
recklessly to the 
very edge of a 
precipice and 
amble along, as 
cool as you please. 
If one side of the 

4 mountain chalet. road i s more 

iPeasant Hut) dangerous than 

the other, they choose the more dangerous side. 
Perhaps they are trying to give us our money’s worth 
of dizziness, but we feel that we are getting more than 
we paid for. 




46 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

When we reach Chamounix, the top of Mont Blanc is 
aglow from the setting sun. As we stand on the hotel 
piazza and gaze in wonder, the snow on the summit of 
the peak gradually changes color—from blood red 
fading softly to palest pink. As darkness comes upon 
our valley, the pink turns gray. Long before the sun 
has set in the lower valleys, we Chamounix people are 
eating dinner by electric light—so short are the days 
when mountains wall us in. 

Mont Blanc does not stand a solitary peak rising 
from level ground. All about it are mountains and 
peaks, some of which look even higher than it. It is 
fairly covered with glaciers. Sixty-four of them drain 
from Mont Blanc into the valley of Chamounix. Many 
of them may be seen from the heights around the 
village. 

GLACIERS. 

There are no less than four hundred glaciers in the 
Alps. They average from sixteen to eighteen miles in 
length, from one to two miles in width, and from one 
hundred to one thousand feet in depth. Their entire 
surface is about one thousand square miles. They 
are formed near the line of perpetual snow: that is, 
from eight thousand to nine thousand feet above 
sea level. 

At that height more snow falls each year than can 
be melted. Thus a great mass is formed, which melts 
and freezes a little each day. The alternate melting 
and freezing, and the great weight of the mass, turn 
the lower layers to ice. 

Then the ice begins to creep down the mountain, 
traveling less than a foot a day. So vast is the glacier 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 47 

that it creeps as far down as the grain fields and 
forests without melting. We think it a strange sight— 
these great rivers of ice, with flowers blooming and 
grain waving along their sides. 

As the glacier moves downward, huge masses of 
sand, stones, and great rocks, both fall upon it and 

cling to its under 
surface. These are 
dragged along, 
cutting great 
grooves in the 
rocky surface of 
the earth, or hol¬ 
lowing out basins 
in the soil. The 
basins fill with 
water and form 
lakes. The beds 
of all Swiss lakes 
were made by 
glaciers ages ago. 

When a glacier 
reaches the warm 
lower slopes, it 
melts and flows 
away to form riv¬ 
ers. The load of rocks which it carries is dropped 
at the melting end in heaps, called terminal moraines. 
Sometimes the terminal moraines are one hundred 
and fifty or two hundred feet high. 

Masses of rock dropped along the side of a glacier 
are called lateral moraines. Those , in the middle, 





48 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


formed by two glaciers uniting, are called medial 
moraines. 

The surface of glaciers is rough and billowy, and 
broken by great cracks, called crevasses—hundreds of 
feet wide, and a thousand or more feet deep. In some 
places the surface looks as if it had been blown up by 
an explosion. Blocks of ice are heaped one upon 
another in confusion. 

When an immense rock falls upon the glacier, it 
keeps the ice beneath it from melting, by shading it 
from the sun. The surrounding surface gradually 
melts, leaving the rock upon a slowly rising table of ice. 
This is called a “glacier table.” When the weight of 
the rock becomes too great, the table breaks, and its 
load, falling again upon the surface, starts to rise on a 
new table. 

* CLIMBING THE MER DE GLACE. 

We hire a guide, and prepare to climb the Mer de 
Glace glacier. Its name means “sea of ice.” We buy 
smoked glasses to protect our eyes from the glare of 
the snow, thick hobnailed shoes, and alpenstocks. 
The latter are long poles tipped with iron points, and 
having tops of chamois horn. They will help us to 
keep our footing in slippery places, or leap clefts in the 
ice. We wear warm clothing and carry lunches and 
wraps in knapsacks strapped to our backs. 

The Mer de Glace is the best known glacier on Mont 
Blanc. It has been called the Glacier of the American 
Girl because it is the least difficult to ascend of all 
Swiss glaciers. American girls are said to dislike hard 
climbing. To us it looks very difficult, but our guide 
knows the way. 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 49 


He has a rope, with which he ties us all together, 
single file. By keeping the rope stretched tight between 
each two of us, we can hold back any of our number 
who slips. Where the walking is difficult, the guide 
cuts steps in the ice with his ax. Less timid climbers 

ascend this glacier 
with neither ropes 
nor guides to aid 
them. 

We tread care¬ 
fully, for we go 
where cracks open 
so deep that we 
dare not look to 
the bottom Water 
trickles over the 
surface, making it 
slippery. Loose 
stones lie ready to 
trip us on slopes 
where, once being 
started, we should 
slide downward 
to destruction. 
Torrents roar be¬ 
neath the glacier. 
the mer DE glace. We see them at the 

bottom of deep ravines in the ice. The guide tells of 
people who have fallen into these icy depths and made 
their way out by following the stream through its 
cavern. 

Proud of our success in climbing, on our return we 






50 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

have the shopkeeper at Chamounix burn the name 
“Mer de Glace” into the handles of our alpenstocks. 
Skilled climbers have their alpenstocks covered with 
the names of mountains which they have ascended. 
We should like to climb Mont Blanc, but find that it 
takes three days, besides costing each person from 
fifty to one hundred dollars for guides, porters and 
provisions. 

Only within the last century or so have people dared 
to scale the highest Alpine peaks. Then men began to 
make their way to the tops, peak by peak—with hair¬ 
breadth escapes or fatal accidents in every case. 

THE FIRST ASCENT OF MONT BLANC. 

In 1786, a naturalist of Geneva, named DeSaus- 
sure, offered a large reward to the first man who should 
reach the top of Mont Blanc. Balmat, a strong, young 
chamois-hunter, determined to win the prize. He 
spent weeks studying every path up the mountain. 
Once he was in the snow of the upper heights for three 
nights, only to be driven back unsuccessful. 

After many defeats, he set out in a last effort to 
reach the top. A physician, named Paccard, went 
with him. They left Chamounix after dark that no 
one might see them and, after resting on the mountain 
until two o’clock in the morning, began to climb. The 
people of Chamounix watched them through telescopes, 
as they made their way up the difficult slopes. They 
had a hard struggle to advance. A deep, deep abyss 
could be crossed only by creeping over a narrow bridge 
of rock, or they must cut steps up a precipice of ice; 
or must climb a wall of rock by clinging to twigs, in 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 51 

danger of falling any instant into ravines a thousand 
feet deep. The icy wind nearly froze them. 

At length Dr. Paccard gave out; he could not go a 
step farther. Balmat left him in the snow and strug¬ 
gled on. Presently he came to a high point. He tells 
this story: 

“I was walking with my head bowed down; but 
perceiving that I was upon a point which I did not 
recognize, I raised my head and saw that I had at 
length reached the summit of Mont Blanc. Then I 
turned my eyes about me, trembling lest I had deceived 
myself and should find some new point, for I should not 
have the strength to climb it. The joints of my legs 
seemed held together only by my trousers. But no! 
no! I was at the end of my journey. I had arrived 
where no one had been before, not even the eagle and 
the chamois. I was the King of Mont Blanc.’’ 

He went back to Paccard and led him to the summit. 
After spending another night on the mountain, they 
returned to Chamounix. 

Many people now make the ascent every summer. 
There is a little observatory on top built pyramid 
shape. It stands on a foundation of snow and is 
heated and furnished. Small parties may stay there 
two or three days' if they wish. Breathing is not easy 
in the thin air of that altitude. Nor can one boil 
water, if he wants a cup of coffee, because the pressure 
of the air is too light. 

A monument in memory of Balmat’s ascent stands 
in the square at Chamounix. It represents De Saus- 
sure and Balmat standing with their faces toward 
Mont Blanc. Balmat is pointing toward the summit. 


52 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

CHAMOIS. 

While climbing about the mountains, we see our 
first chamois. It is a tame one, led by a boy. Wild 
chamois are disappearing from the mountains, driven 
out by hunters or by the railroads. Some are still 
found around Berne and in the southeastern cantons. 


The chamois belongs to the antelope family, but looks 
like a goat. Its shoulders are two feet above the 



THE CHAMOIS (,> s nat.’size). 


ground; the length of its body, about three and one- 
half feet. Its body is covered with long, fawn- 
colored hair which turns dark brown in winter. 










A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


53 


Chasms from sixteen to eighteen feet wide are leaped 
by these agile creatures as easily as we step across a 
ditch. They skip about the ledges of high mountains 
or climb down the face of a rocky precipice where no 
man could follow. Their fore feet are close together, 
with hoofs shaped for climbing the hard, uneven sur¬ 
faces. Chamois hunters must be nimble climbers, and 
wary, to keep up with their game. The only way to 
get a shot at one is for a party of hunters to surround 
the mountain, creep up its sides cautiously, and sur¬ 
prise the herd—if herd there be. For the most part 
they do not dwell in herds. 

In summer they retreat to the typs of mountains, 
where snow lies, for they like cold weather. Shrubs, 
flowers and . twigs are their food, which they season by 
licking salt from the rocks. In our higher excursions 
we come upon rocks hollowed out by the frequent 
licking of chamois. They seldom drink water. 

The senses of smell and of hearing are keen. They 
can scent tracks made in the snow even when partly 
covered. A sound reaches them from a remarkable 
distance. When any suspicious object attracts their 
attention, they stand perfectly still, gazing directly at 
it, their heads high and nostrils quivering. 

They and the eagles are the highest dwellers of the 
Alps. The marmot, red and white foxes, Alpine hare, 
and wild goats are occasionally found. But severe 
winters have almost entirely robbed the mountains of 
animal life. 

THE SUMMER PASTURES AND HERDSMEN’S HOMES. 

Once, when climbing a mountain, we come out upon 
the flowery summer pastures—the alps, green and 


54 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


fragrant. We hear the tinkle of cow bells mingling 
with the sound of alphorn and the herdsman’s 
yodel, and stop at a cowherd’s chalet to rest and look 
about us. 

Every spring, when the snow begins to melt from 
these high pastures, the cattle are brought herefrom 
their winter stalls in the villages. They begin at the 
lower alps, ascending higher, from time to time, as 
the summer passes. In July they reach the highest 
pastures, away above tree line, where they spend from 
six to eight weeks. After that they descend, a pasture 
at a time, to feed on the later growth of gra&s. 

The departure /for the alps in the spring is a time of 
general rejoicing in the villages. Herdsmen, milk¬ 
maids, and at times whole families, go with the cows, 
goats and sheep, carrying along the needful household 
goods for their summer chalets. All the village turns 
out to accompany the procession part way up the 
mountains, singing,yodelling,and making merry. There 
is the same rejoicing at their return in the fall. 

The cowherd’s chalet where we rest is a rude log 
hut built on a slope, with lofty mountains around it 
and broad snowfields sending a breath of cold air across 
its waving grass. Little furniture adorns the chalet— 
a rude bunk in the corner with a bunch of hay for a 
bed, a board table, bench, and stove whereon is a 
huge kettle. We watch the cowherd’s wife make 
cheese. 

CHEESE MAKING. 

First, she heats the milk in the great cauldron. 
Then rennet is added to curdle it, after which the mix¬ 
ture is allowed to stand from twenty to thirty minutes. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


55 


Then she skims it, stirs and stirs it with a wooden 
ladle, and lets it boil. The whey is strained off for the 
pigs, the curds put in the cheese press, and everything 
scrubbed clean for the next cheese-making. The 
cheeses have to be turned and rubbed with salt daily. 
The best Swiss cheeses come from Gruyere, a little 
valley southwest of Berne. 

We gather handfuls of flowers of the most vivid 
colors and sweetest fragrance. There are deep, deep 
blue violets, gentians, forget-me-nots, purple pansies, 
glorious chrysanthemums, and red—blood red—Alpine 
roses. Nowhere else in the world can one find more 
brilliant, fragrant flowers than on these Swiss Alps. 

Life on the summer pastures is hard but wholesome, 
for the air is sweet and pure, and the life an outdoor, 
one. The herdsmen’s fare is plain and nourishing- 
cheese, curds, rye bread with the sweetest of butter, 
dried or fresh fruits, and coffee made with milk. Meat 
is a rare article of diet with the average Swiss family, 
whether in the villages or on the pastures. 

We admire the beautiful cows, sleek and mild-eyed. 
Their bells are tuned to harmonize in tone, the largest 
bell belonging to the leader of the herd, while the 
heifers have small ones with a tiny tinkle. Sets of 
these cow bells cost from fifty to sixty dollars. At 
evening time the cows answer to their herdsmen’s 
yodel and alphorn, and come trooping to be milked. 
Herdsmen and milkmaids have their little one-legged 
milking stools strapped on, so that their hands may 
be free to carry the pails. 

Goats and sheep feed on less fertile pastures. They 
are able to nibble among rocks and thistles on more 


56 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


barren slopes; for, you see, neither a goat nor a sheep 
has any such social position as a cow. 

The alphorns are wooden tubes, from six to eight 
feet long. A blast from one of them wakes the echoes 
for miles around. As night falls, they can be heard far 
down in the valleys, giving the herdsmen’s good night. 

As the sun sets, the herdsman on the loftiest height 
puts his lips to the tube and calls loudly, “ Praise the 
Lord God!” 

Alphorns below take up the words, repeating them 
from mountain to mountain. When all have ceased, 
the solitary herdsman high above them again sounds 
his horn, “Good night, good night!” 

“Good night!” echo the horns from remote alps. 
Then darkness falls, and the herdsmen’s night of rest 
begins. 

THE ST. BERNARD HOSPICE. 

The Great St. Bernard is a Pass through the moun¬ 
tains east of the Mont Blanc group of peaks. At the 
summit of the Pass is the St. Bernard hospice—a 
combination of monastery and shelter house. Ten or 
twelve monks stay there all winter to give aid to 
benighted travelers obliged to cross the Pass. So 
severe are the winter snows in this desolate region 
that many are lost in drifts, or overcome by the cold. 
These the monks strive to find and save. In summer 
time thousands of tourists visit the hospice. 

Nine hundred years ago—and over—the hospice was 
founded by a monk named St. Bernard. In all the 
centuries since, many lives have been saved by the 
good brothers, who stay there for that sole reason. 

We have seen in story books pictures of the St. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 57 

Bernard dogs, with flasks of brandy strapped to their 
necks, hunting in snow drifts for lost people. We are 
eager to visit the monks, see their dogs, and hear tales 
of their wonderful rescues of travelers. 

At a village near the entrance to the Pass we 
mount mules. There is a carriage road to the hospice, 
built in recent years. However, we prefer to ride 
mules. If we should get lost in a snow drift and be 
found by the dogs, that would just suit us. It would 
be like the story-book pictures. But as it is an 
August afternoon, there is little hope of such an 
adventure. 

As we ascend the Pass, the air grows keen. Higher 
and higher we go, like the boy in Longfellow’s “ Excel¬ 
sior.” Have you read that poem? Presently we 
mount beyond tree line. At a certain altitude trees 
cease to grow. We are on a bare, rocky height where 
patches of snow appear? 

A light snow actually begins to fall. This is fun! 
We dismount to pick flowers—here a daisy, there an 
Alpine rose, growing close to patches of snow. Some 
find deep blue forget-me-nots—only a few. The 
Alpine rose is most beautiful. It is a kind of rhodo¬ 
dendron. But we must hasten forward. 

The journey grows more difficult. Night is coming 
on, and we are tired, cold and hungry. We no longer 
wish to be lost. Now the hospice may be seen through 
the flying snow. It is a welcome sight. 

Two great prison-like buildings stand beside a dark 
lake, with mountains looming round about them. The 
hospice is over eight thousand feet above sea level. 

A young monk greets us cordially at the door and 


58 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


leads us to the sitting room, where a fire blazes on the 
hearth. The room is filling with arriving tourists, whose 
talking makes a cheerful buzz of voices. Several 
distinguished people are present. Plenty of plain folk 
like ourselves are there as well. All are pleasant 
and companionable. 



ST BERNARD HOSPICE. 

Down a long corridor (with doors opening from it 
on either side, as if to prison cells) we go to our rooms. 
They are neat, but bare—no carpets and no fires. 
The monks cut their wood and bring it up the Pass 
with much difficulty. So they have to be sparing of 
fires in summer. Winters here last- eight months of 
the year. 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 59 

At seven o’clock we descend to the refectory (dining¬ 
room) for dinner. Here there is light, warmth and cheer. 
New parties of tourists keep coming in as we eat. 
The dinner is excellent. So are our appetites. 

The brothers themselves assist in waiting on the 
tables. They are clad in black cloth habits, which 
button close in front and reach to the feet. A white 
band, passing around the neck and down the front, is 
fastened behind to the girdle. 

Father B. tells us that sixty guests have arrived 
this evening. All are received without question, and 
entertained free. The winter travelers are poor 
peasants, who can pay nothing. Summer guests may, 
if they wish, put money in the alms box of the chapel. 
We determine to place there enough to pay for our 
entertainment. Sometimes tourists fail to do this—a 
great wrong to the generous monks. 

Where do they put so many guests? The hospice 
has about eighty beds, says Father B. They tuck 
people away somehow. Some summers they have had 
as many as five hundred at a time. Think of feeding 
such an army! 

Many distinguished people have spent a night at 
the hospice. We are shown the room where Napoleon, 
the French General, slept. 

The monks lead a busy life. They are young men, 
none over thirty-three years of age. Only the strongest 
ones are chosen to stay here through the winter. Even 
then, the cold and hard life make invalids of some, 
forcing them to return to the valleys. 

Summers, they look after the house and guests, care 
for the animals, and cut fuel. In winter storms they 


60 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


go daily about the paths looking for lost travelers. 
The dogs are their faithful assistants in these searches. 

A telephone connects »the hospice with villages 
at either end of the Pass. Since it was put in, fewer 
accidents have occurred. People now ask the monks 
about the weather before setting out to cross the Pass. 
Still, a winter never passes without accidents, often 
fatal ones. 

We pass a pleasant evening around the sitting-room 
fire. There is music, and conversation in spite of the 
mixture of languages. The monks speak French and 
Italian. They tell interesting tales of their dogs, one 
of a dog which saved forty lives. 

Before daybreak, next morning, we slip down in 
answer to the chapel bell and find the monks and 
servants at prayers, kneeling on the stone floor of 
the cold and gloomy chapel. These noble, devoted 
men give themselves few comforts. 

We visit the dead house, a stone building near by. 
Here are kept the bodies of the unclaimed dead found 
by the dogs, some of which have been there many, many 
years. The bodies are dressed just as they were found, 
and are propped about the room in every manner 
of fantastic attitude. In this cold, dry air, they do 
not decay, but crumble away by bits. 

The dogs leap and frisk as we approach the kennels. 
They are the finest fellows we have seen in the dog 
walk in life. They have shorter, less curly hair than 
St. Bernard dogs seen elsewhere. The original stock 
came from Spain. Their heads are large, limbs 
strong, and eyes so intelligent that we easily believe 
the stories told of their brave rescues. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 61 

On stormy days they are impatient to be off on a 
search. Sometimes the snowdrifts are forty feet high, 
so that only a dog could find anyone buried in them. 
The dogs go in company with two skilled guides who 
are sent daily, one in either direction, to keep the paths 
clear and help anyone in distress. When the faithful 
animals find a traveler buried in the snow, they dig 



ST. BERNARD DOG. 


him out and hurry away to bring assistance. One 
dog returned to the hospice with a little boy on his 
back. The child was just able to cling to his rescuer. 

We breakfast with our fellow tourists in the refectory 
—a simple meal of rolls and coffee. Then we bid the 
monks a grateful farewell and start down the Pass, 
once more to enter the world of railroads. Everyone 
loves and reverences the monks of St. Bernard. They 





62 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


live hard lives, labor constantly for others, and die 
unknown to the world. Thinking of their unselfish 
lives, we resolve to live more nobly ourselves in the 
days to come. 

BERNE. 

Berne, the capital of the Republic, is one of the 
handsomest cities of Europe. Many travelers visit it 
yearly to enjoy its beautiful scenery. The city is built 
upon a high promontory, one hundred feet above the 
river Aar. From here may be seen the mountains of 
the Bernese Alps, shining white and serene in the 
distance. 

Over seven hundred years ago this city was founded 
by a German Duke as a military stronghold. The story 
is that the Duke decided to name his town after the 
first wild beast caught in the forest. A bear was 
caught. So the name Berne, which means bear, was 
given to the place. 

The bear is the city’s emblem, and for centuries 
bears have been kept at the public expense. This 
animal figures on coins, sign posts, public buildings, 
and in many other places. 

Berne is decorated with bears—live bears, stone 
bears, wooden bears and painted bears. We first visit 
the bear pit to see the live ones. They are rolling 
about in lazy comfort, while visitors gathered around 
the railing throw them goodies. The young cubs 
tumble over each other for the morsels. All feel very 
important, for they are protected by law even from 
improper food. Visitors are permitted to feed them 
only what is good for their health. 

We drink at the Kindlifresser (child devourer) 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


63 


fountain. It is decorated with carved figures of bears. 
The central figure is a dreadful ogre, engaged in eating 



STREET IN BERNE, SHOWING OLD CLOCK TOWER. 

a baby. Babies lie all about, and stick from its pockets, 
waiting to be eaten. 

At noon we make a point of being in front of the 
remarkable clock with the long German name—the 











64 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


Zeitglockenthurm. It has a bear scene every noon. 
About twelve, a cock gives the alarm by flapping its 
wings. This is not a real cock, mind you. Then a troup 
of make-believe bears walks around the seated figure of 
an old man. As the hour strikes, the old man turns an 
hour glass and counts the hour with his scepter, 
opening his mouth as if speaking. Another queer 
figure holding a hammer strikes it on a bell t welve times. 
Then the cock crows again, and the performance is over. 

Having done our duty by the bears, we look about 
the town. The streets are as quaint as one will see in 
any old-world city. They have ancient arcades built 
along either side, forming roofs over the sidewalks. 
Under these cool, dark arcades all the busy life of the 
streets goes on. Here in booths shopkeepers display 
their wares. An odor of cheese fills the air. Berne is 
a great market for the famous Swiss cheeses, especially 
those from Gruyere, which sell all over the world. 
Fruits and vegetables sold at these arcade markets 
come from the large farms around Berne. 

Benches along the walls afford a retreat for the 
Bernese people. Old ladies sit here to knit, business 
men read their papers, smoking long, crooked pipes, 
children play, and young folk gossip. 

Milk carts drawn by dogs rumble by. Peasants 
from the country tramp through the arcades, baskets 
of vegetables strapped to their backs. Some carry 
large trays heaped with cheese. Others have cans of 
milk on their backs. Burden-bearing seems always to 
be frac/c-bearing. Even housekeepers are accompanied 
by little boys, each with a “hotte” for carrying pur¬ 
chases. No wonder so many people are stoop-shouldered, 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 65 

While in Berne, we visit the new Parliament Build¬ 
ings. Here the laws of the Republic are made. Let 
us see if we cannot understand how this is done. 

THE GOVERNMENT. 

We are proud of our land, because it is free and a 
Republic. But freedom in Switzerland was centuries 
old when George Washington was a baby. Switzer¬ 
land is the oldest republic now existing. It was a 
Swiss hero who cried, “Make way for liberty,” as he 
died fighting for his country. 

In Switzerland the people have more power, the 
President has less, than in the United States. Still, 
our little sister Republic is governed somewhat as our 
own. In republics there must be a body of men to 
make the laws, and another to have the laws executed. 

in the United States, Congress makes the laws; in 
Switzerland, the Federal Assembly . 

In the United States, the President and the men who 
advise him (called the Cabinet) see that the laws are 
executed; in Switzerland, the Federal Council , com¬ 
posed of seven members, sees that the laws are carried 
out. This Federal Council elects one of its members, 
each year, to be President of the Republic; another, to 
be Vice President. They hold office one year. Nor 
can they be re-elected until another year has passed. 

The President's salary is five thousand four hundred 
dollars per year. 

The Federal Assembly—the law-making branch of 
the government—is divided into two Councils: the 
State Council, and the National Council. 

The State Council has forty-four members—two 



66 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

from each canton. The National Council has one 
hundred and sixty-seven members. 

As you may guess, there are interesting times when 
all these men get together. As every canton is repre¬ 
sented, three languages are spoken. We should like 


CAPITOL OF SWITZERLAND—BERNE. 

to see them in session. This is what happens some¬ 
times :— 

A member from a German canton makes a speech in 
his native tongue. Up bobs a French Swiss to reply in 
French. Thereupon, a dark-eyed, black-headed little 
man “talks back” in Italian. 

They understand one another, though. They make 








A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 67 

laws about war and peace, and the telephone, telegraph 
and postal services; arrange for the coining of money 
(French coins are used in Switzerland); the protection 
of the forests; the training of soldiers; the building of 
roads and railways; and for other matters of general 
interest. 

Swiss elections are held on Sundays. The people 
say they are too busy to vote on weekdays. Often 
elections are held in the churches. Sunday afternoon 
the church bell rings for the voters to assemble. They 
sit in the pews. .When a man’s name is called, he 
walks forward with his vote in a sealed envelope, to 
place it in the ballot box. This sounds very solemn, 
but sometimes their behavior is not at all solemn— 
quite the contrary. 

In a few small cantons, voting is done in the open air. 
The people meet in the village market places, or in 
meadows. Women and children are there, also, 
although they cannot vote. These open-air elections 
are said to be very impressive. 

The voters gather in a circle about the platform. 
An opening prayer is made, the men standing with 
bowed heads. Voting is done by raising hands. At 
the close, all join in a hymn. Then follows, very often, 
a picnic luncheon on the grass. Through many centu¬ 
ries the grand old mountains have looked down on 
these simple, open-air gatherings of a free people. 

Each canton, like a state in our Union, manages its 
own affairs. As our states are divided into counties, 
so each Swiss canton is divided into little districts 
called communes . 

Some things are owned in common by the people 



68 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


of a commune—the forests, the pastures, and, in some 
communes, the land. The commune gives each family 
its share of fuel, and permits it to send a certain 
number of cattle to graze on the pastures—all free of 

charge. Where 
the commune 
owns the land, it 
sells small tracts 
to heads of fami¬ 
lies at a price with¬ 
in their means. 
In this way even 
poor peasants are 
able to own their 
homes. 

Berne has fam¬ 
ous hospitals, 
schools, museums, 
parks, drives, and 
beautiful bridges 
over the Aar 
River. It has a 
university and a 
splendid old ca¬ 
thedral. We take 
the electric car to 
the Gurten, a hill 
whence we seethe 

COSTUME OP THE CANTON OP BERNE BemeSe Alps tO- 

ward the southeast. Their white line is broken by 
peaks famous for beauty or grandeur. 

Another excursion is to the beautiful old town of 







A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 69 

Thun. Its castle on a wooded height is the central 
figure. There are castles and castles in Switzerland, 
but each has a beauty of its own. Luckily we have 
arrived on market day and may see the pretty costumes 
of the Bernese peasant girls. 

PEASANT COSTUMES. 

They wear gay colored skirts with black velvet 
bodices over white muslin waists. Sleeves and waists 
are tucked and starched. Silver chains are looped 
under the arms, fastening in front and in back with 
rosettes. Flaring straw hats complete the costume. 

The market is not so large as the one visited in 
Lausanne, but is even more picturesque. We buy 
flowers and wild mountain strawberries, and curios 
without number. People keep arriving from all di¬ 
rections with their dairy goods and garden supplies. 
Boats loaded with produce are thronging across the 
Lake of Thun. 

AWAY TO INTERLAKEN. 

We go by carriage along the northern shore of the 
Lake of Thun to Interlaken. The road built of stone 
is as smooth as a floor. We pass through five tunnels 
between Thun and Interlaken. And where can we 
see more beautiful views? (Not in the tunnels, to be 
sure, but between them.) Our eyes rest on mountains, 
gorges, forests, castles, waterfalls, and lakes which look 
like paintings by a master artist. The scenery is re¬ 
flected in the quiet water to the very leaves of the trees 
—even the birds see themselves as in a mirror. 

Presently we come in sight of Switzerland’s loveliest 
peak, the Jungfrau. Its name means the Virgin . We 


70 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


see it and lose it again behind nearer mountains, also 
its neighboring peaks, the Monk and the Eigher. 

Omnibuses now begin to roll by; trains whistle; auto¬ 
mobiles, carriages, pedestrians—all are going our way. 
We drive down a broad, shady avenue between rows 



Interlaken: Up the Valley Rises the Jungfrau. 


O tell me, love, if this is Switzerland, 

Or is it but the frost-work on the pane. 

— T. B. Aldrich . 


of walnut trees, where people are promenading and 
listening to music. This is Interlaken. 

Our carriage stops at the entrance to a fine hotel. 
A porter in livery rushes out to take our luggage. 
Another assists us from the carriage. Several more lead 









A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 71 

the way within. Interlaken must be a very fashionable 
resort—so the porters make us feel. Swiss boys like 
to become hotel porters. They earn good wages, see 
different cities, and meet people from everywhere. So 
they learn fine airs that make them objects of envy 
to their old village playmates. We like Swiss hotel 
porters, in spite of their high manners, and we like 
Swiss guides even better. The latter are sturdy, brave 
fellows, always ready to lend a hand to help one, even 
at the risk of danger to themselves. 

At Interlaken is much show of fashionable dressing. 
Chamonix people wore plain clothing suitable for climb¬ 
ing. Here finely dressed tourists are on the Promenade, 
in the hotels, or at the Kursaal, a splendid cafe which 
faces the Jungfrau. White and radiant this peak 
gleams through an opening in the mountains, the one 
great sight of the place. 

We drink coffee at a table on the piazza of the 
Kursaal, and look at the moonlight turning the Jung¬ 
frau’s snowy summit to silver, while the orchestra 
plays sweet music. Bells are ringing on the lake boats, 
people about us are talking in German, French, English, 
Dutch, Russian, or Italian, and gardens waft us fra¬ 
grant breezes. We should like to stay here the rest of 
the summer. 

A railroad is being built to the top of the Jungfrau. 
It is finished for only two-thirds of the whole distance, 
but the work is moving forward. This is one of the 
most daring attempts at railroad building set on foot 
in Switzerland. The work of building it is especially 
dangerous, for avalanches almost continually roll down 
the Jungfrau and the precipices are perilous. 


72 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

Interlaken means “between lakes.” It is built on 
a stretch of land between the Lake of Thun and the 
Lake of Brienz. We go by boat to Brienz, a town at 
the eastern end of the Lake of Brienz, which is noted 
for its wood-carving industry. It has a school for teach¬ 
ing wood-carving, where we see the pupils at work. 
They are learning to carve chairs, book racks, hat 
stands, parquetry, and wooden toys, such as birds, 
bears, chamois, chalets and the like. Brienz wood- 
carving sells wherever any wood-carving sells, what¬ 
ever the country. In the villages of this region many 
are also engaged in making watches and clocks. 

LAUTERBRUNNEN. 

Lauterbrunnen is a short ride from Interlaken. It 
is a gem of a village set in a narrow valley, hedged 
in by mountains. So high are these mountain walls 
that in winter the sun is hardly seen at all. Even in 
July it does not rise until seven o’clock. Apart from 
the fine views of the Jungfrau, the Falls of Staubbach 
are the chief sight of interest at Lauterbrunnen. From 
a thousand feet above a small stream leaps downward, 
dashing into fine spray. The sunlight on the spray 
brings out all the colors of the rainbow. 

Let us take the “electro-funicular,” a railroad up 
the mountain to a tiny hamlet high above Lauter¬ 
brunnen. The “electro-funicular” is run partly by 
electricity, partly by a moving cable. In places the 
car is lifted upward almost like an elevator. Thus we 
are drawn up to Muerren, the hamlet. It seems to be 
at the jumping-off place. 

The village is on an elevated point of land where 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 73 

chasms open round about. So great is the fury of the 
winter gales in this part that the house roofs have to 
be loaded with stones. Here we see glaciers and 
avalanches, snow fields and summits, with a nearness 
that makes them terrible. 

We stay all night at the hotel and hear the rush 
and roar of avalanches even in our dreams. Some¬ 
times it takes but a slight cause to start an avalanche 
—a footstep on the snow, a jingle of bells, a voice 
speaking a trifle loud, all have set these snow slides 
crashing down the mountain. Travelers who cross 
the mountains during winter storms tell of driving 
slowly and speaking only in whispers, from fear of 
starting a slide. Whole villages have been buried by 
these slides, forests destroyed, and countless lives lost. 

The Government has built defenses in places where 
avalanches occur regularly. Stone walls and tunnels 
are a common form of defense. Forests are the best 
protection. So the Government controls the forests, 
permitting no tree to be cut down without its sanction, 
and a new tree must always be planted when an old 
one is cut down. 

We are up early at Muerren to see the sun rise. We 
stand waiting in the cold gray morning, the awful 
silence of the hoary mountains making us shi\ er. 

Now begins the dawn. First appears a faint radiance 
in the east; then a mingling of wonderful hues; then 
in an instant—the golden glory bursts upon the peaks, 
spreading from mountain top to mountain top, while 
we catch our breath with joy and wonder. Mr. Kipling 
has told us of daybreak in India, where 
“The sun comes up like thunder.’’ 


74 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

We know what he means now, for we almost hear the 
roar of thunder as the sunlight breaks on the mountains 
around Muerren. 


GRINDELWALD FARMS. 




Grindelwald is twelve miles from Lauterbrunnen, in 
a fertile valley over three thousand feet above the sea. 

The Grindelwald 
folk are herdsmen 
and farmers. The 
little farms of this 
region are models 
of thrift and care¬ 
ful cultivation. 

On a small patch 
of land the peas¬ 
ant farmer must 
raise everything 
which his family 
needs, flax and 
hemp for clothing, 
food for all the 
year, and hay 
enough to last his 
cattle through the 
winter. This 
means toil night 
and day through the short summer season. Ex¬ 
cept those members of the family who go to the 
summer alps with the cattle, all must work in the 
fields—father, mother and children. 

Nothing must be wasted, nothing neglected. Every 



SWISS PEASANT 

(On his back is the ; ‘hotte,” the receptacle in Switzerland 
for carrying burdens.) 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 75 

scrap of manure is saved from stables, road, chicken 
houses, and pasture. Every potato must be dug; 
every blade of grass cut, even to the “wild grass” on 
high slopes, where the hay cutter risks his life to 
gather a few bundles of poor hay: every head of grain 
is harvested with an economy that seems miserly to 
American farmers. 

Potatoes, rye and oats are the chief crops, but 
vegetable gardens, and orchards of cherries, pears and 
apples are seen flourishing on some farms. The flax 
and hemp are spun into coarse material by the women 
folk, and made into clothing for the family. 

Their industry is no less in winter time, for the 
men work at some trade—such as making watches, 
clocks, carving wooden or ivory toys, and the like, 
while the women make lace, do embroidering, weave, 
spin, or knit. The children are sent to school seven 
months of the winter, but are trained to help in the 
work of house and dairy, or to add their mite towards 
earning a living, when not at their lessons. 

Plain fare, hard work, and close houses where the 
cattle, too, are lodged make many peasant families 
look careworn, stooped, and poorly nourished. They 
eat almost no meat, but abundance of dairy products, 
with coffee, bread and dried fruits. We stop at a 
pretty farm house and are given cups of cream in 
carved wooden bowls, which we admire. Then the 
housewife shows us with pride her wooden spoons with 
carved handles, and other bits of decorated household 
ware. Her husband does this work winters, and makes 
a tidy sum thereby. 

The house is spotlessly clean, with scrubbed pine 


76 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


floor, substantial wooden tables and chairs, a white 
porcelain stove reaching almost to the ceiling and 
ribbed around with brass bands, and pictures of the 
Virgin and the saints on the walls. Every window has 
its shelf of plants, which grow in tin fruit cans. In 

one corner is the 
spinning wheel, 
where the grand¬ 
mother i s busy 
with her flax. 

One daughter 
and the youngest 
boy are in their 
summer chalet on 
the alps. The 
eldest son is in 
London, learning 
English and serv¬ 
ing as hotel porter 
at the same time. 
He is looked upon 
spinning. as an ornament 

to the family. He no longer wears a homespun working 
blouse, like his father, nor does he even smoke his long 
pipe, but is splendid in a ready-made, tailored suit of 
clothes, which his simple relatives admire almost 
under their breaths. We think we should rather be 
the younger boy, living on the alps, dressed in a coarse 
blouse, and walking barefooted over the violets 
and pansies. 

Grindelwald is at the foot of two glaciers, in one of 
which a narrow tunnel has been cut, two hundred feet 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 77 

in length. We walk through this ice cavern and 
wonder whether we shall find at its end the old woman 
of whom we have read. When she sees tourists coming 
that way, she runs into the cavern to play on a jangling 
old zither and collect pennies for her performance. 

More than one Grindelwald citizen is after tourists’ 
pennies. Tables and booths covered with articles for 
sale greet us at every turn. We could spend a fortune 
on Swiss souvenirs, but hurry away to see the Aar 
glaciers. 

Agassiz’s hut was on the moraine of the Upper Aar 
glacier. Here he spent most of his time while studying 
glaciers, and here the huge boulder was found which 
marks his grave in Massachusetts. The glacier is 
eighteen miles long and about three miles wide. From 
it springs the Aar river, which we saw at Berne, and 
which is a tributary of the Rhine. 

Not far from here is the Rhone glacier. We go by 
mules across the Grimsel Pass to see this, the most 
marvelous glacier in Switzerland, perhaps in the 
world. We pass through scenery wild and desolate, 
climbing heights swept by cold winds. When we see 
the monster cataract of ice we are certain that Switz¬ 
erland has no greater work of nature to show us. 
Longfellow has well described it: 

“A frozen cataract, more than two thousand feet in 
height and many miles broad at its base. It fills the 
whole valley between two mountains, running back to 
their summits. At the base it is arched like a dome; 
and above, jagged and rough, it resembles a mass of 
gigantic crystals of a pale emerald tint, mingled with 
white. A snowy crust covers its surface; but at every 


78 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


rent and crevice the pale green ice shines clear in the 
sun. ” 

From the foot of this glacier the Rhone rivei 
springs, to flow away through the Lake of Geneva and 
the southern part of France to the sea. 



RHONE GLACIER. 


LUCERNE. 

Lucerne, a quaint and historic little city, lies on the 
eastern shore of Lake Lucerne. On the west is Mount 
Pilatus; on the east, the Rigi. Of Lake Lucerne, 
some one has said that “the Lord might have made a 
lovelier lake, but He never did.” 







A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


79 


All the fashionable world seems taking a holiday at 
Lucerne. Pilatus and the Rigi look down upon a gay 
town. Lucerne has a population of 40,000, which in 
summer is enormously increased. 

The Promenade beside the lake is crowded with 
handsome equipages, ladies in Paris toilettes, and 
climbers in knickerbockers, with alpenstocks in hand 
and knapsacks on their backs. 

Lucerne has two ancient wooden bridges over the 
River Reuss. One was built nearly six hundred years 



OLD BRIDGE AT LUCERNE. 


ago. Both are covered and have on the inside walls 
a series of paintings by artists of a time long gone. 
We see the old, old tower, once a prison, but now con¬ 
taining a collection of relics. We visit the Hofkirche, 
or cathedral, and hear the great organ. The organist 
plays a selection which reproduces the sounds of a 
storm. We hear the thunder, the wind crashing 
through the trees, and almost see the vivid flashes of 









80 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


lightning. These Swiss cathedrals all have fine organs, 
but the most noted one, perhaps, is that in the cathe¬ 
dral at Fribourg, a town southwest of Berne. 

THE LION OF LUCERNE. 

In a garden of Lucerne is the famous lion, a monu- 
•ment made in memory of some brave Swiss soldiers 
who stood nobly by their posts in a time of danger. 
They formed the Swiss Guard which defended the 
French king, Louis XVI., when a mob of his own 
subjects attacked his palace during the French Revo¬ 
lution. The Swiss Guard stayed to protect the king 
long after the French soldiers had left him to his fate— 
and lost their lives for staying. The monument was 
designed by Thorwaldsen, the Danish sculptor, and 
represents a lion in the agony of death. It is cut from 
the face of a huge rock hollowed in the form of a cave. 
Water trickles down one side, forming a pool on the 
base, where pond lilies grow and shrubs overhang the 
water. The stone lion is thirty feet long. A dagger is 
plunged into its side, while its head sinks in pain and 
its paw lies protectingly over the shield of France. 
The lion symbolizes the courage of the Swiss soldiers; 
the shield of France refers to the king. Above the cave, 
in Latin, are the words: 

“To the valor and fidelity of the Swiss.” 

Beneath are written the names of the soldiers who 
perished. It is a most impressive monument, for all 
who look upon it feel the valor of the act which it 
commemorates. 

We remember that there was a disgraceful period in 
Swiss history, when the soldiers of the Republic were 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND.* 81 


willing to fight for any foreign power that paid them 
well. It made little difference what they fought for, so 
long as they received their price. Being good fighters, 
they were in great demand. It is said that a French 
soldier once sneeringly remarked to a Swiss: “The 
Swiss fight for money, but the French for honor. ” 



THE LION OP LUCERNE. 


“Yes,” retorted the Swiss soldier, “we both fight 
for that which we do not possess. ” 

We climb the Rigi on the cog-wheel railroad. This 
little railroad is like those up Mount Washington and 
Pike’s Peak at home. Midway between the rails of the 
track is a double rail, notched like teeth. On the 
engine is a wheel with cogs which fit into these notches 
of the middle rail. The cog-wheel, run by steam, 




82 • A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

pushes the train up the track. Going up, the engine 
is at the rear of the train. Coming down, it goes ahead, 
to check the speed of the train. 

We think the engine a queer object, for it is tilted 
down ftt the front end and hoisted up at the back, like 
a camel on its knees. Perhaps it is broken? Oh, no; 
when we start up the mountain, the front end will be 
on a level with the back. That explains its shape. 
The seats, also, are tilted forward. When we sit on 
them, we think we shall fall upon the floor; but when 
we are ascending the slopes, we find ourselves sitting 
level. 

The train travels at the rate of three miles an hour, 
making the trip to the top in an hour and a half. That 
is slow traveling; but we enjoy it, because it enables 
us to see the marvelous scenery. We creep over 
bridges swung high in air, through tunnels, past wild 
forests, sometimes skimming along a bridge over the 
tree tops. And now we wind along a narrow ledge, 
from which we see lakes and towns, far, far below. 
We pass a large hotel or two on the way, and see 
climbers at different points panting and struggling 
upward with the aid of their alpenstocks. 

The Rigi is but little over five thousand feet high. 
Yet the view from its summit is not surpassed in 
Switzerland. This is because the mountain stands 
apart, without surrounding mountains to cut off the 
view. At the Kulm, or summit, the temperature 
changes suddenly. When we reach there, it is so cold 
that we don overcoats and golf capes and hurry, shiv¬ 
ering, to the hotel. In half an hour the clouds break, 
the sun shines, and we are glad to exchange our wraps 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


83 



for cotton shirt waists. Even on the top of the Rigi 
are the ever-present booths with souvenirs for sale. 
They are seen at different points on the way up, with 
business-like salesmen driving a brisk trade in toys, 

postal cards and bric-a- 
brac. 

There is a platform, 
reached by stairs, at the 
very tip-top of the Rigi, 
where one may see almost 
“all the kingdoms of the 
world and the glory of 
them,” spread out in the 
valleys below. We look 
through field glasses with 
colored lenses and see 
the view all red, or all 
yellow, or all green, jusft 
as we prefer. Better 
still, we view the land¬ 
scape without any 
cathedral at lucerne. glasses whatever. For 

three hundred miles round about it lies smiling in 
the sunshine. There is Lucerne; there Zurich; there 
are the towns between, how many we cannot say, for 
they look like one great, straggling city. We count no 
less than ten lakes, and trace rivers like white threads 
running through forest and farm land. Yonder, we 
see mountains with clouds chasing across their upper 
slopes. Old Pilatus covers his head with a cloud cap, 
and then, curious to see what we are up to, peeps out 
at a rent in the top. 




84 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


We stay over night at the Kulm to see the sun rise. 
While in Switzerland we are forever climbing moun¬ 
tains to see the sun rise. We leave our beds, half awake, 
and stand with chattering teeth in the cold of an early 
morning, feeling quite savage because we have had 
no breakfast. Then the day begins to break, and we 
forget ourselves. To see a sunrise in the Alps we 
would endure many hardships. 

WONDERFUL ROADS. 

Mount Pilatus has up its sides a railway which is 
thought to be the steepest in the world. The upper 
terminus is six thousand nine hundred feet above sea 



TUNNEL IN THE MOUNTAINS. 


level. The foundation of the road is solid masonry 
covered with granite slabs. Arches span the ravines. 
The train can be brought to a standstill any moment. 
The engine and one coach make up the train. 

Railroads penetrate nearly every part of Switzer- 





A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


85 


land. They follow the river valleys, cut through 
mountains, or climb over them. Their construction 
has taken many years, cost millions of dollars, and 
brought death to many poor fellows working on 
them. 

^he St. Gothard railway is a famous road. It 
extends from Lucerne to the Italian lake region south 
of the Alps. Ten years were required to build it. 
The road has fifty-six tunnels, cut through the solid 
granite rock, and numerous bridges so strongly made 
that an earthquake would hardly break them. The 
scenery along this line is one beautiful view after 
another. At Goeschenen begins the great St. Gothard 
tunnel—the longest tunnel in the world. It extends 
nine and a half miles, to Airolo, is twenty-six and a 
half feet wide, and over nineteen feet from the floor to 
the arch of the roof. Nine years were spent in building 
it. Work was begun at both ends at the same time, so 
that the engineer’s plans had to be most exact. On 
February 28, 1880, the middle of the tunnel was 
reached. That was a great day, when the Swiss 
workmen from the north end and the Italian woikmen 
from the south blasted the thin wall of roc> 
remaining between them. 

We have been on the electro-funicular road to 
Muerren, up the cog-wheel road of the Rigi, have seen 
the one up Pilatus, and heard of the one being built up 
the Jungfrau. There is still another wonderful railroad 

_the Gonergrat—which starts at the village of Zei- 

matt and ascends almost 11,000 feet up the mountains 
“into a world of ice.” We shall see this load. 

The noblest carriage road ever made by man runs 


86 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


from Lucerne to Fluelen, a town at the southern end 
of Lake Lucerne. It is of solid masonry, with not a 
pebble to mar its smooth stone bed. Where it skirts 
the lake, it is bordered by stone parapets. Tunnels at 
numerous points have great arched openings in the 



AXENSTRASSE ROAD. 


side, through which may be seen lake and mountains— 
and mountains in the lake—for the clear, smooth 
water reflects its mountain walls as in a glass. This 
king of roads is called the Axenstrasse. There are a 
number of fine carriage roads in these lake regions and 
through the Jura section of Switzerland. 







A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 8? 

PILATUS. 

Mount Pilatus is the weather prophet of Lucerne. 
It is believed by some of the natives that the shape of 
the clouds on its summit foretells the weather. A 
round cloud, like a cap, indicates good weather; a 
long, sword-shaped one, pointing towards Lucerne, 
means rain. Tourists are always watchful of these 
clouds, to see whether Pilatus really knows his business 
as he should. 

Besides having the power to prophesy, Pilatus has 
a ghost—or did have, before men laid it by climbing 
to the summit. People believed that Pontius Pilate s 
ghost dwelt on the mountain top and stirred up all the 
storms of that region. 

The legend is that Pontius Pilate, after he left 
Galilee, was imprisoned in Rome. There he com¬ 
mitted suicide, and his body was thrown into the Tiber 
River: The Tiber angrily cast the corpse upon the 
shore. Then it was thrown into the Rhine, which also 
refused to keep it. At last it was taken to a little 
lake on the top of Pilatus. There it remained and 
stirred up storms on Fridays. Why on Fridays? 
Our New Testaments may tell us. People were for¬ 
bidden by law to visit the top on that day. But the 
ghost was laid long ago by a young German, who 
climbed to the top for that purpose. How do people 
lay ghosts? We really think there is no way, except 
by refusing to believe in them. Now a little tram 
steams up this mountain several times a day, in 
summer. 

Lake Lucerne is called the Lake of the Four Cantons, 
because it is surrounded by the cantons of Lucerne, 


88 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden. The last three are 
the historic “forest cantons.” 

Like all pilgrims to this part, we take a steamboat to 
visit the scenes of William TelTs exploits. Schiller, 



MODERN MOUNTAIN CLIMBING. 


the German poet, has put Tell’s story into a drama, 
which has been played on the stage. There are many 
versions of the legend. Here is the oldest one:— 

WILLIAM TELL. 

William Tell lived in the canton of Uri at the time 
when Austrian governors were oppressing the people. 
He was one of the bravest of the mountaineers who 
took the oath of freedom at Rutli—a strong, daring 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 89 

man, who could do no end of things better than any¬ 
body else. Archery was his chief accomplishment. 
The skill with which he shot arrows would have made 
an American Indian envious. 

Gessler was one of the tyrannical Austrian gov¬ 
ernors. He was so insolent that he even wanted the 
people of the forest cantons to bow to his cap. He 
ordered it set up in the market place of Altorf, so that 
every one passing it might bow before it “as though 
the lord were there. ” 

“And he who did it not” (reads the old record), 
“him he would punish and cause to repent heavily. 
And the servant was to watch and tell of such an one. ” 

Tell refused point blank to bow before the cap, and 
was taken before Gessler. Gessler ordered him to be 
imprisoned, but offered him his freedom if he would 
shoot an apple from his son’s head. Gessler wanted to 
see some of this famous archery; secretly, he thought 
that this was one time when Tell would hit the wrong 
mark. 

Poor Tell tried to escape the test, for he loved his 
boy dearly and feared that his skill would fail him, with 
the child’s life at stake; but Gessler stood firm. The 
boy was bound to a tree and an apple placed on his 
head, while the father was stationed at a distance. 
Tell put an arrow in his quiver and another arrow “he 
took in his hand, and stretched his crossbow, and 
prayed God that he might save his child, and shot the 
apple from the child’s head. ” 

When the excitement was over, Gessler asked Tell 
why he had put the extra arrow in his quiver. When 
Tell hesitated to reply, Gessler said: 


90 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

“ Tell me the truth; I will make thy life safe and not 
kill thee.” 

The archer cried out that, had he shot his boy, he had 
planned to kill Gessler with the other arrow. Gessler 
fell into a terrible rage and ordered Tell bound and 
placed in a boat with himself and his attendants. The 
prisoner was to be thrown into a dungeon at Kussnacht. 
Having promised to spare Tell’s life, Gessler had to 



TELL’S CHAPEL. 


keep his word, but he swore that the prisoner should 
“never more see sun or moon.” 

The boat started across the lake, but a storm came 
up and threatened to swamp it. Tell had to be un¬ 
bound, as he was the only one on board able to steer 
them safely to shore. Now was his chance to escape! 
Steering carefully toward a flat rock on the shore, 
he leaped from the boat upon the stone, pushed the 
craft from the shore, and made off through the thicket. 






A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


91 


Gessler and his crew had a hard time to make the 
land again. We may imagine Gessler’s wrath. Mean¬ 
while, Tell hid in a hollow and awaited the passing 
of the party. At their approach he drew his bow and 
shot Gessler in the heart. So there was one less tyrant 
to trouble the Swiss. 

We steam down the lake, past the scenes of this 
story. Mountains rise from the shore, in places almost 
perpendicular. These mountains make Lake Lucerne 
the lovely bit of water that it is. We pass Brunnen, 
where the men of the forest cantons met to form the 
compact of August, 1291. At Tellsplatte is a charming 
little chapel dedicated to Tell. It has four large 
frescoes on its walls illustrating the chief events in 
his story. Religious services are sometimes held in 
the little chapel. At another point on the shore is 
a towering rock, bearing an inscription in memory 
of Schiller, the German poet who celebrated Tell’s 
deeds in a drama. 

Across the lake from Tellsplatte is Rutli, where the 
oath to live and die for freedom was taken by tha 
men of the Three Forest Cantons. 

We go to Altorf, at the southern end of the lake, and 
see the market place where the shooting occurred. 
Here Tell is said to have stood when he shot the apple 
from his son’s head; here is a fountain marking the 
place where it is believed that the boy was stationed. 
Two statues of Tell are in the market place. The 
larger one is a splendid bronze piece, representing 
Tell with his little son beside him descending from the 
mountains. The statue was placed here in 1895. 

Historians say that there never was a real William 


92 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


STATUE OF TELL. 


ers. 

Altorf is gor¬ 
geously decorat¬ 
ed with bunting, 
flags, garlands 
and wreaths. 
Its people forma 



Tell; that the story is only a legend; but the Swiss 
believe in their hero. Every year they hold a great 
festival in his honor, at which all the towns around 

Lake Lucerne 
take part. The 
people meet at 
Fluelen, gather¬ 
ing by hundreds, 
so that the lake 
boats are loaded 
with passengers. 
Then they form 
in line and 
march to Altorf, 
with banners 
and flags flying, 
music playing, 
and people sing¬ 
ing. Thewomen 
all wear the 
pretty costumes 
of their cantons, 
and every one 
is decked with 
wreaths of flow- 








A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


93 


splendid procession and go out to meet the crowds 
marching from Fluelen—friars in their dark gowns, 
nuns from the convent, school children singing, guilds 
of workmen in their uniforms—all advance to meet 
their guests, chanting and carrying garlands. At the 
church in Altorf the Bishop blesses the multitude and 
kolds mass in memory of Tell. 

THE PEOPLE—AMUSEMENTS. 

The Swiss hold many festivals and historical pro¬ 
cessions in celebration of great events. Every com¬ 
munity seems to have its special anniversary festival, 
in which all the people take part. At such times may 
best be seen the old-time peasant costumes in all their 
bravery of silver chains, rosettes, and peculiar head 
gear. 

Music, also, is dear to the Swiss heart, and so each 
village has its singing club. A national musical assem¬ 
bly is held at stated periods, first in one city, then in 
another, to which delegates from these local clubs are 
sent. Then may one hear chorus singing to make 
the heart glad! Voices—thousands of them—ring out 
the national anthems until the audience goes wild 
with applause. Some of the national airs are herds¬ 
men’s songs, full of the hearty life of the mountaineers, 
with stirring “yodelled” choruses. 

Village rifle shooting clubs are as numerous as the 
music clubs. So are all kinds of athletic associations, 
as the people are interested in every form of manly 
exercise, but especially in wrestling. 

The Turnfest (or National Athletic Sports) occurs 
every three years. The celebration is held each time 


94 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

in a different city. Every athletic club of the country 
sends picked men to compete for the prizes which are 
offered for boxing, fencing, leaping, running, swim¬ 
ming, wrestling, stone-lifting, dancing, exercises with 
clubs and parallel bars, and so on. 

As many as five thousand athletes have competed at 
one time. They are strong, lithe fellows, from every 
station in life. Whether they are farmers, herdsmen, 
clergymen, bankers, lawyers, or shopkeepers, makes 
no difference; all are good comrades out for a jolly 
time. The city entertaining the Turnfest Guilds great 
barracks on the athletic grounds where %e contestants 
eat and sleep. Each club has its banner and special 
badge for the members. When the thousands gather 
at the long tables in the barrack dining hall, each 
club grouped around its own banner, the scene is a gay 
one. Flags fly, bands play, and hearty voices shout in 
unison, with a merry clatter of cups and plates. 

The Turnfest always opens with a long procession of 
all the athletes, and closes with a general field exercise 
that is as fine as any great military review. The hope 
of sometime being able to compete at the Turnfest 
stirs many a Swiss school boy to make the most of his 
gymnasium practice. 

The Swiss like to live in villages rather than in cities. 
They like to know and help one another, a plan which 
is not always possible in cities. Their favorite motto 
is “Each for all, and all for each.” They live together 
on the summer pastures, gather their grape or hay 
harvests together, hull their walnuts or roast their 
chestnuts at “bees” like our old-time husking bees; 
and do their washings together at the village fountain. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


95* 



Their homes are simply furnished, with no carpets, 
and almost no pictures. This is not true, of course, of 
the wealthy class, who dwell in such comfort as is 
possible for the rich in any civilized country. But the 


INTERIOR OF SWISS HOME. 

average Swiss home has little luxury in it. Two 
objects we almost always find—a great white porcelain 
g-j-Qy -0 &nd an old-fashioned loom. Some of the oldest 
styles of these stoves are seven or eight feet high, and 
have little stairways up to the top, where is a small 







96 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

space, screened by a curtain, forming a room some six 
feet square. That must be a good place for the children 
to toast their toes when they come home from school. 
The loom is used to weave linen or silk goods. 

Strangers are always welcomed cordially in these 
homes, and given the best the house affords. One 
may be invited to share the meal, when but one large 
dish stands on the table, from which each one eats 
with a spoon. This is not considered a discourtesy 
to the guest—the discourtesy would be on our part, if 
we refused their simple hospitality. 

Weddings, picnics and dances are always on Sunday. 
The Swiss are a deeply religious people, but see no 
harm in making Sunday a day of pleasure. They 
enjoy dancing best of all their pleasures, but the 
communes fix the number of dances that may be 
given and the hour when each must close. So the 
young folk are not indulged too much in their favorite 
amusement. 

One of the most noticeable traits of the Swiss people 
is their love of home and kindred. When children go 
out into the world to earn a living, even to foreign 
lands, they always send home a portion of their wages, 
however meager, to help parents, brothers and sisters. 
The parents, in turn, give their children the best 
training and education at their command. They teach 
them to be truthful, to depend upon themselves, to 
love honesty and industry, to help others, and to be 
polite to everyone. We never meet these little men 
and women that they do not greet us with a cheery 
“adieu” or “guten tag.” 

All Swiss parents seem to agree with one of their 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


97 



army officers, who said: 

“ Every boy and girl 
ought to be taught a bread¬ 
winning handicraft; t o 
shoot straight (if a boy); 
to nurse (if a girl); and to 
know and do their duty to 
their neighbors and their 
God/’ 

ZURICH. 

The largest city in Swit¬ 
zerland is situated on the 
northern shore of the Lake 
of Zurich, just where the 
River Lim- 
at fl o w s 
from the 
lake. 

Zurich is 
an historic 
old city. 

The Rom¬ 
ans of long 
ago called 
it Turicum. 

It was a sturdy Protestant town during the Refor¬ 
mation, and gave a home to many people exiled 
from their native land for holding the Protestant 
faith. Here the first English translation of the Bible, 
By Miles Coverdale, was printed in 1535; and here 
lived the great Swiss patriot and preacher, Zwingli. 

The city is in a fertile valley, the low hills of which 


■vip4eK 


WASHING AT THE FOUNTAIN. 





98 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

are covered with vineyards to the foot of the mountains; 
not far distant. Fine views of this lovely valley may 
be had from the city terraces, or from the Uetliberg, a 
near-by mountain, which is ascended by a railroad. 

Zurich has a metropolitan appearance, witn its 
broad boulevard, its promenade along the quays, its 
fine squares and massive buildings. The lake is astir 
with steamboats and barges, the hotels and .cafes are 
full of people, and the shops attract crowds of cus¬ 
tomers who come here to buy Zurich silks. 

We visit the Grossmunster, where Zwingli preached, 
“thundering the wrath of heaven” against evil doers. 
He was a brave defender of the right, and worked espe¬ 
cially hard for one national reform—the overthrow of 
the custom whereby Swiss soldiers fought for pay, 
selling their services to other nations. 

We see the ancient Guild Houses, where members 
of the various trades and crafts of Zurich used to meet. 
Zurich has a population of 195,000, and it seems as 
if each one of all these people belonged to some club. 
Music clubs are particularly numerous. One of the 
music clubs is several hundred years old. The German 
musician, Wagner, lived in Zurich a number of years, 
and here composed his beautiful opera—Lohengrin. 

The largest and oldest industry in Switzerland has its 
center in Zurich. That is, the manufacturing of silk 
goods. Since the thirteenth century, Zurich silks h? w. 
been in the forefront of the world’s silk markets. Raw 
silk is brought both from Italy and far-off China. 
Perhaps the bit of silk on one’s best gown has trav¬ 
eled from China, across the Pacific, across the United 
States, across the Atlantic, across France—to.Zurich, 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 99 

there to be made into goods which take another 
long journey back again to the United States. 

Factories keep up a big humming in the city, while 
almost every house of every village round about is 
a-whirr with the looms of the silk weavers. Cotton, 
linen, and woolen goods are made also. Where do the 
Zurich people buy their raw cotton? And the flax for 
their linen? Even machinery is manufactured here— 
not an easy task, for all the coal and iron must be 
imported from distant countries. 

Thus we see a little country, without food enough 
for its people, without minerals (the Alps may be rich 
in iron, but the expense of working it would be too 
great to pay), without a seaport, and without natural 
routes of travel. Yet we see this small country over¬ 
coming every obstacle and winning at last a place 
among the most prosperous nations of Europe. 

Zurich is noted for its schools. The University is 
attended by men and women not alone from Switzer¬ 
land, but even from Russia, Germany, England and 
the United States. A famous school of science here 
is the Federal Polytechnic. We remember that 
Pestalozzi, the teacher at Yverdon, was born in 
Zurich. The library and the museums have a number 
of memorials of him and of Zwingli. 

We take a brief trip to Appenzell, southeast of 
Zurich, to buy some of the Appenzell embroidery, 
which has as wide a reputation as Gruyere cheese and 
Zurich silks. We visit the school at which girls are 
taught to make this beautiful embroidery and lace. 

Then we are off, by way of Lucerne, to take the St. 
Gothard railway through the Swiss-Italian canton of 


100 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 

Tessin. Here we pass the vineyards and the groves of 
figs and chestnuts, which are the chief growths of 
this canton. 

Finally, we turn our faces toward Zermatt. 

ZERMATT—THE MATTERHORN. 

This village is in a valley five thousand three hundred 
and fifteen feet above sea level, where mountains white 
with snow and ice crowd around it, with Monte Rosa 
and the Matterhorn overshadowing all. 

The Matterhorn rises from a bed of glaciers like 
a pyramid, being fourteen thousand seven hundred and 
five feet high. It is like no other peak in form, having 
precipices so steep that for ages no man dared ascend it. 
Mont Blanc was scaled in 1786; the Jungfrau, in 1811; 
Mont Rosa, in 1851. Still, no one had mastered the 
Matterhorn. It was named the “Fiend of the Alps.” 

On July 13, 1865, Mr. Edward Whymper, an English¬ 
man, finally reached the top. He was accompanied by 
three young English friends and three skilled guides. 
Before this, he had made seven attempts to reach the 
summit, each unsuccessful. This time he made the 
most careful preparations. Each of the party had 
already climbed the more difficult Swiss peaks. So they 
felt hopeful of success, being many in number and able 
to help one another. 

They spent a night on the mountain and began 
climbing in the early morning. Good headway was 
made until they reached an altitude of about fourteen 
thousand feet. From there on the precipice rises in 
an almost straight line. Its face was so slippery with 
ice and snow that the slightest misstep here would 



A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 101 

mean destruction. With the greatest difficulty they 
crept upward, but at a little past one o’clock in the 
afternoon, Whymper and the guide, Croz, reached the 
top together. 

The ascent was successful; the descent, fatal. They 
started down the fearful precipice, with Croz leading. 
A rope held them together, single file. Whymper 


CROWN OF THE MATTERHORN 

and the two remaining guides were at the other end of 
the line, while Whymper’s friends followed Croz. 

At a certain point on the precipice, Croz turned to 
help ttadow, the young Englishman behind him. 
Suddenly Hadow slipped, knocked against Croz, and 
both fell head foremost. 

Instantly Whymper and the two guides at the far 








102 


A LITTLE JOURNEY TO SWITZERLAND. 


end of the line braced themselves to hold the rope 
tight—but to no purpose. In a flash, Croz and Hadow 
had dragged down with them the two Englishmen 
behind Hadow. For but a moment of time the four 
hung suspended over the brink of the precipice. Then 
they disappeared over its edge, while Whymper and 
the two other guides watched them slip from sight. 

Stricken with horror, the three survivors clung to 
the rock and dared not move. An hour passed while 
they hung to their dangerous foothold, trembling with 
terror. Finally they summoned courage to move. 
Slowly and fearfully they crept downward, peering 
about for their lost companions. But the four had 
fallen thousands of feet to the glacier below. 

The ascent of the Matterhorn has since been made 
easier by cutting steps in the rock and providing ropes 
and hand rails to steady the climbers. But the peak, 
for all that, is still the “ Fiend, ” which may take one’s 
life if he have not steady nerves, stout heart, and 
level head. 

Our journey ends with Zermatt. We return home, 
leaving much of this mountain land unexplored. To 
see all its interesting nooks and historical spots would 
require many summer sojourns in Switzerland; but we 
have seen enough to make us admire the people of 
this little republic, remember forever the glory of their 
Alps, and wish them six hundred more years—and 
twice six hundred—of free government. 

And now, away with alpenstocks, hob-nailed shoes, and 
knapsacks. Pack the music boxes, toy chalets, carved 
clocks, and Appenzell embroidery. We must hasten 
on, for there are many countries yet to visit in Europe. 


PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 

SWITZERLAND 


Agassiz. 

Alpine. 

Axenstrasse .. 

Bernard. 

Basel. 

Berne ....... 

Bonivard .... 

Bacchus. 

Brienz. 

Chamois. 

Chalets. 

Chillon. 

Chamonix. . .. 
Edelweiss .... 

Fribourg. 

Froebel. 

Gruyere. 

Glacier. 

Grindelwald. . . 

Gessler. 

Grimsel. 

Helvetia. 

Interlaken 
Jardin Anglais. 

Jungfrau. 

Jodel. 

Kursaal. 

Lausaune. 

Leuk. 

Lauterbrunnen 

Lucerne. 

Moraine. 

Morgarten 
Mer de Glace .. 
Mont Blanc . . . 
Neuchatel 

Pestalozzi. 

Pension . 

Pilatus. 

Pilate .. 

Rigi. 

Sempach. 

Schiller. 

Tyrolese. 

Vaud. 

Vevey. 

Von Winkelreid 

Yverdon. 

Zurich. 


... ag'-a-se 
. . .al'-pine 
.. . aks'-en-stra'-se 
. . . ber-nard' 

. . .bal 

...bern 
.. . bo-ne-var' 

. .. bak'-us 
. .. brents 
. . .sham'-i 
. . . sha-la' ^ 

. . . she-yon' 

.. . sha-mo-ne' 

.. . ed'el-wis 
. . .fre-bor' 

. . .fre'-bel 
. . . grii-yar' 

. . . gla'-shier 
. . . grin'-del-vald 
. . . ges'-ler 
. . . grim'-zel 
... hel-ve'-shia 
. . . in'-ter-la-ken 
. . . zhar'-din ang-laz' 
. . .yong'-frou 
.. . yo'-dl 
. . . kor'-sal 
,. . lo-zan' 

. .loik 

. .lou'-ter-bron-nen 
.. lu-sern' 

.. mo-ran' 

.. mor-gar'-ten 
.. mar d’ glas 
. .mon blon' 

.. ne-sha-tel' 

. pes-ta-lot'-se 
. . pen'-shon 
. . pe-la-tos 
.. pi'-lat 
. .re'-ga 
.. sem'-pach 
.. shil'-ler 
.. tir-o-les' 

. .vo 
. .ve-va' 

.. von vink'-el-red 
.. e-ver-don' 

.. zo'-rik 



















































‘ NATIONAL SONG OF SWITZERLAND. 


Moderato. 


—— ■■ 

—-— # “ 4 f— j 

—#— 

# # 

= .. # 3 




1—srd 

i-—9-y—:d 


To Swiss, in stran • ger’s land, sing ne’er 



moun - tain dit - ties fresh and fair, Or 



— r -• — 

* 

- : s : 

tear 

drops tliou’lt see 

b:—t ' • 

fall - ing; 

7 

■ # 

His 


r- 

^—_ 

-/-r—-1--- 

heart with pain Will 

L >■ — b 

long in vain 

--—-* 

J-N--N * . 

: J - ■ 0 d 


# 2 9 _ LJ -1 


* ^ J 

'~xr " ^ 


For all the strain's re - call - ing! A li 



du - li bi • la lio, la da - n bi - la ho, la 



da • li bi - la ho, la da - li bi • la ho, ja 




























































































































































